Ray Liotta has one great moment among several fine ones in the new Joe Carnahan-directed Narc. A troubled, violent cop, he first meets his new partner Jason Patric at the precinct's firing range. A hidden Liotta fires six shots through a paper target's head before turning to Patric and asking, "You wanna get some coffee?" Liotta's face in this moment--terrible and haunted and almost child-like--makes everything after it worthwhile. He is a heartbreaking monster, and we want so badly to be on his side.
Narc is about the rules of law enforcement, about justice and about the impossibility of achieving the latter without the former. Too bad Carnahan is not yet a great director. He undercuts his actors at critical junctures with unnecessary flashbacks. His script, though well written at many points, dismisses major characters out of hand, never allowing them back. Most damning, the film's last third, a series of dull machinations hell-bent on delivering a long-awaited revelation, has little going for it besides decibels and spittle. Nothing disheartens more than watching a director lobotomize his own characters for the sake of plot, and Narc makes its very smart policemen very, very stupid. Carnahan may one day direct something fantastic, but today see Narc for the aging werewolf that is Ray Liotta.
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