Q & A *

Q & A isn't one of Sidney Lumet's better films. For one thing, it rehashes too many of the themes of crime and punishment that Lumet handled to greater effect elsewhere and it also manages to be both racist and homophobic while purporting to condemn both racism and homophobia. but neither is it totally negligible either. It's another study of police corruption; the bad cop is Nick Nolte and the decent, young assistant D A who goes up against him is Timothy Hutton. They are both fine but the best performances are those of Armand Assante as a Puerto Rican gangster with his own agenda in wanting to bring Nolte down and Patrick O'Neal as Nolte's equally corrupt boss. It's based on a book by Edwin Torres and Lumet himself did the screenplay. It could do with some trimming as it runs for well over 2 hours and it's a flabbier picture than either "Serpico" or "The Verdict"
but it's visually impressive, (the DoP is Andrzej Barkkowiak), and there's enough plot to hold our interest. Let's call it middle-of-the-road Lumet.