Amazon.co.uk Review
A grim, disheartening view of the underside of city life,
Q & A is a legal drama with a disturbing twist. Not exactly a whodunit--the guilt of policeman Nick Nolte is established early on--the plot follows the closing of the circle around him. Leading the murder investigation is Timothy Hutton’s young, idealistic district attorney Al Reilly, who finds himself battling a fraudulent and cynical culture. Racism, corruption and political machinations are all added to the mix, resulting in a film that is just a little too dense and slow moving to capture the imagination.
Director Sidney Lumet creates a feeling of enveloping darkness around Hutton, who slowly manages to let the light in and bring the truth to the surface. With an obviously small budget, the film has more of a made-for-television feel than that of a big blockbuster and some of the performances err too much on the side of cliché. The concept of the New York melting pot is fairly effectively dismissed by the film, painting a picture of distrust between communities that often spills into verbal and physical violence. Not quite as unremittingly bleak as Harvey Kietel’s Bad Lieutenant, Q & A is still a tough, dark piece of cinema.
On the DVD: Q & A is very much a film of the night, with much of the action taking place either in the shadows or in rooms with harsh, artificial light. The picture on the DVD reflects that perfectly, although the lack of budget is hard to disguise. The soundtrack quality is good, if not startling, but there are no extras aside from the movie’s theatrical trailer. All in all, it’s a fairly average package. --Phil Udell
Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
DVD 9
English
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 2.0 English
Dolby Digital 2.0
Theatrical Trailer
Scene Access
Interactive Menus
Danish\Finnish\Norwegian\Swedish
Product Description
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), Danish ( Subtitles ), English ( Subtitles ), Finnish ( Subtitles ), Norwegian ( Subtitles ), Swedish ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN (1.85:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: In streets burning with hatred, corruption and violence, there walks a powder keg with a short fuse called Brennan (a blistering performance from Nick Nolte). When Brennan shoots a small-time crook in cold blood, he covers up the shooting as self-defence and Assistant DA Reilly (Timothy Hutton) is assigned to the investigation. Brennan's innocence rests on a clean sheet but innocence is hard to prove when key witnesses become murder Q & A victims. Someone is trying to cover for Brennan and may succeed, unless one surviving witness takes the stand: gangster, drug-runner and racketeer Bobby Texador (Armand Assante). Texador, Brennan and Reilly are as far apart as you can get when it comes to ideals - but when it comes to murder, invisible threads are drawing them together, tightening a noose around somebody's neck but whose? SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Golden Globes, ...Q & A ( Q and A )
