Internal Affairs (1990)

Popular reviews

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  Andy Garcia is: The Wife Guy. Richard Gere is: The Wife Fucker. Beyond the law there is only the deadly game of cuck and bull.

  What could have been a pretty cool movie about an insanely dirty cop and police corruption just becomes a movie about a guy who has to defend his home from a man who loves fucking other guy's wives. This was part of the "guy trying to fuck your wife" thriller craze of the early 90s (Unlawful Entry, Pacific Heights or Malice, etc.) I've always found Richard Gere vaguely ridiculous and this movie is certainly no exception.

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  I watched this compulsively as a teenager, but I'm not sure I realized back then how freakin' weird it is. The narrative--a fairly standard bad-cop/good-cop thriller--basically corrodes before our eyes and logic breaks down like a jalopy, until this cat-and-mouse thriller is an almost totally subjective, dreamlike essay on the fragility of the male ego. Laurie Metcalf is a standout as Andy Garcia's lesbian partner. What a crime she never got more roles like this.

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  I'm Richard Gere. Fuck all this cop shit. I'm here to fuck somebody's wife. Long dick style!

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  Hyper sleaze.

  It should be illegal for Richard Gere to play anything but sociopaths.

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  Much ambition is here, we usually don't get this much intrinsic detail about the police's special internal investigation department. There might be too much plot with "planted evidence" and "fall guy" stuff, that if scaled back, it might have played ingeniously smooth. It does get quite compelling when Richard Gere, as a crooked cop and womanizer, attempts to seduce IAD investigator Andy Garcia's wife. Garcia, inevitably, cannot help but blow-up into a jealous rage. Stylistic lighting and hallucinogenic flashes by director Mike Figgis gets introspectively into the characters. Look at the raw ferocity of Internal Affairs and some other off-hand credits, you start to think Figgis was a great talent that got away from us; his one masterpiece is "Leaving Las Vegas." Sure this one has flaws, but its qualities are uncommon.

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  Master manipulator dirty cop Gere decides to climb into the head of the guy investigating him for literally no discernable reason. He does nothing to throw Andy Garcia's IAD off his trail and really just ends up goading his pursuer into killing him, which (spoiler) he does in an entirely clean shoot. Mission accomplished? Garcia's no prince, either, getting completely spun out of control because Gere takes a few obvious "I fucked your wife" pokes at him, which ends up doing more to motivate him than the actual murders Gere's committing. I think this wants to be, with its pretentiously loaded title, one of those "searing indictments", in this (deeply misogynist) case of twisted male aggression and power structures, but…

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  As racial tension takes the forefront in many countries, even during these times of lockdown, films about the corruption in the police system have been making a comeback. Mostly dealing with the people against the system. However, for me, some of the best features about this matter have to be those where the same system attempts to somewhat cleans itself.

  Gere does a great job playing this shady cop, who also happens to be some sort of the poster boy of the good and effective cops. He has such an inherent charm that aways gets you to fall in love somehow for his characters, even when's a complete arsehole. Andy Garcia, on the other side of the spectrum, portrays this…

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  Andy Garcia yelling WHAT ELSE YA GOT in a parking garage, Laurie Metcalf royally pissed ‘cause, YEAH, the guy was RUDE to me, William Baldwin insisting he “doesn’t have a drug problem” amidst all the cocaine scattered around his, uh, bedroom, and the one & only mighty-fine Richard G threatening to give Garcia’s wife a good time whilst getting punched in the face. 

  Love how my buddy Kurdt describes Gere as a deranged horny maniac who basically demonstrates zero fear at any given moment ‘cause, right, why should he? He’s attractive, he’s a cop, he’s got tons of kids, a bunch of ex-wives, and can get into any woman’s bed no matter the hour. And when he says stuff like, hey, don’t mess with me, I say, out loud: No problem, Rich. Wouldn’t dream of it. 

  
  | 3 of 16

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  I swear, I don’t think Andy Garcia blinks once in this movie. Also, he is a terrible husband. When a suspect threatens to seduce your wife, maybe, you know, warn her or something instead of just staring at everybody with your creepy, creepy eyes.

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  Love Richard Gere in this movie. "Oh, so IAD is sniffing around? Let me do the complete opposite of laying low."

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  Richard Gere can be very good when he plays slimy and one that just doesn’t give a damn ‘bout nothin’. He’s both of those things here and the movie is better for it. A somewhat pedestrian middle half is recovered by an action packed and rollercoaster of a final third. Andy Garcia, Laurie Metcalf, and a host of quality 90s faces get some good stuff in here. I’ve owned all these titles on dvd that have been put out on blu ray in those After Dark Neo-Noir sets for a while and it inspired me finally taking off the shelf and watching. A lot of these are really just cop thrillers and not noir anything, but this one skirts the line. A crazy ending frame.

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  Maybe it's not all that original of a police thriller, but Internal Affairs is a pretty fun slice of 90s entertainment that's mostly held together by its stellar cast. In particular, Richard Gere is great here as a sleazy, corrupt womanizer of a cop and he really makes every scene he's in here a lot of fun with his presence. Andy Garcia and Laurie Metcalf are also really good, while the story and filmmaking are mostly just serviceable if still enjoyable. It never exactly does anything new with the material but it's all solid stuff across the board that's done in an entertaining fashion and little more, which makes Internal Affairs a pretty solid cop thriller despite also being a little unremarkable.