Internal Affairs

Internal Affairs gets inside of you so fast that it's hard to look for or notice its imperfections. There's no point in quibbling about a movie that's this good, this absorbing and merciless, this original and twisted. [12 Jan 1990, p.E1]

It has grown a little thin with age, especially Gere’s yuppie baiting speeches, but there’s a hardness here, an aversion to the dumb action thrills of the genre, that keeps it respectably high up the scale. Read full review

Figgis (in his first American feature) handles the explosive action and the psychological undercurrents with equal assurance. Dark, dangerous and disturbing. Read full review

These are mean streets, but they're sexy and mean. And the evil here is all the more compelling because it has its enticements. So does the film, and though you'd be kidding yourself to accept it as anything other than flirtatious posturing, the allure of the thing is nearly irresistible. Read full review

The script strives to turn Garcia into a nasty Gere alter ego, which may explain why both leads solemnly underplay it. Though Gere's contribution is welcome, two hard-ballers in shades may be one too many; on balance, it's the actresses (especially ever-solid Laurie Metcalf) who sustain interest. [12 Jan 1990, p.2D]

It's a gritty, realistic police procedural about the Internal Affairs Division of the Los Angeles force (the cops who watch the cops). It's also a taut, eerie thriller in which the conflict and tension are hidden -- but still effective. [13 Jan 1990, p.E1]

British director Mike Figgis has a genuine knack when it comes to things such as mood, pacing and atmosphere. But he tends to lose track of crucial points - such as whether or not a central character comes out of the story alive. [19 Jan 1990, p.4]

Rising above its flaws, Internal Affairs converts a genre flick into a generic study, an examination of the mean streets that even the healthiest mind travels, those dark alleys where our force is sometimes overworked and always understaffed, the places where we, too, must police ourselves. [13 Jan 1990]

The very appealing Mr. Garcia has an intense, studied cool that is nicely offset by bilingual outbursts. And Mr. Gere makes the most of Peck's smiling villainy, giving him a powerful physical presence and a dangerous, unpredictable edge. Read full review

Figgis never lets the pace slow long enough to expose the story’s thinness despite, in retrospect, a moderate amount of action. Read full review

Bad fun. This sophisticated variant of the LA. cops-and-coke-and-art-world thrillers has a creepy, rhythmic quality that sucks you in and keeps you amused.

Self-respecting humans with strange kicks, such as family values or an aversion to nasty sex and violence, already know not to see this movie, but those with strange axes to grind (like, you hate Richard Gere, for instance), or too much time, or demented senses of humor, and you know who you are, may just have a fun time of this. Read full review

The movie won't stand up to much analysis, but it delivers a fair amount of electricity, and Gere plays his nasty character with a great deal of relish. Internal Affairs is fun, in a rather perverse way. [11 Jan 1990, p.3E]

It never cuts loose. No matter how much come-hither villainy Gere generates, or how much envy and menace Garcia throws back at him, they're still trapped there in that bare, empty story, waiting for the dry ice and the steam to arrive. Read full review

Just what we didn't need: another kick-ass cop flick in which we know the guys are macho because they rough up their wives and the gals are hot because they totter on spike heels like hookers. Read full review

Figgis' uneven pacing and reliance on blood and guts makes this a difficult movie to watch. Still, his handling of the clash between the two cops makes Internal Affairs somewhat compelling but far less interesting than his Stormy Monday. And his ending for Internal Affairs is a cop-out and predictable. [03 Jan 1990]

Figgis (Stormy Monday), here making his American debut, doesn't possess the tight control necessary to really charge up the material. The result is a stylish but oddly slack film, which still features a couple of fine performances (from Andy Garcia and Laurie Metcalf) and a few effectively perverse moments. Read full review

There's so much blood, sweat and craziness that you stop laughing with first-time screenwriter Harry Bean's script and begin laughing at it. Long before it reaches the fever pitch of a hysterical finale, you may also find yourself looking at your watch. [12 Jan 1990, p.21]

The wise viewer will avoid any serious consideration of subtext here. Internal Affairs isn't that deep. Working from a screenplay by Henry Bean, Figgis takes these early scenes and does nothing with them. After a while, the film simply loses its direction and stalls in a morass of formulaic cliches. [13 Jan 1990, p.1D]

Figgis again aims for sensual moodiness, but so many clashing tones clamor for the viewer's attention that the result is a noisy mishmash. Read full review