Internal affairs

Year of release : 1990

Run time : 1h55m

Genre : Thriller / Crime

Cast : Richard Gere, Andy Garcia, William Baldwin

The movie opens with LAPD police officers Dennis Peck and Van Stretch, who during a dr@g bust, catch the dr@g dealer and his girlfriend. Outside, patrol officer Fletcher, shoots a man who was running outside, discovering after, he wasn't armed. Peck plants a knife on him, helping Fletcher.

Raymond Avilla is introduced to the LAPD Internal Affairs division and meets his partner, Amy Wallace. The two of them have to investigate the bust. Mostly the arresting officer, Van Stretch, who b3at up the dr@g dealer and his girl, and seems to have a history of violence, might be using himself, and might be, also, corrupt. Avilla recognizes Van Stretch from the academy.

Van Stretch b3ats up his wife, whom he suspects of infidelity (his suspicion proves to be correct), and is using coca.

Avilla starts looking into Peck, as he finds suspicious the fact the has 3 ex wives, and 8 kids (!), but somehow manages to support them on a patrol officer's salary.

Fletcher catches a prostitute and is forced to let her go by Peck, who is saying she is his snitch. After this, Fletcher agrees to help Avilla in his investigation.

Peck is still close with his ex wives,whom he kisses on the mouth when he sees them, in front of his new wife (thing I found off putting) . Slowly, he reveals himself to the audience as being corrupt, extorting people, doing favors to cops and criminals (I'm not sure if he deals with pimps or is one of them), and even takes jobs as a hitman. Seeing Avilla is onto him, he starts threatening him, and starts stalking his wife, pretending to be a colleague or superior, who is worried about him, portraying him as the bad guy.

When he hears that Van Stretch will testify against Peck in exchange for immunity (because he was telling that to his estranged wife, whom Peck was doing, at that very time), he stages a hit in which Van Stretch is sh0t in the chest, and then k1lls the man he asked to do it. From here on, he unravels more and more.

I personally enjoyed the movie. It was well written,the leads likeable. I liked their bond.

Andy Garcia reminded me of Timothee Chalamet. His character was a newlywed who's investigation drives a wedge between him and his wife, as Peck is trying to use his wife to get to him. I liked him and his partner, they are very good at their job and at reading people.

Richard Gere's character in this movie is loathsome. I hated him! He was a womanizer, and I'm not sure the women really wanted to be with him, it looked more like they were with him because they were scared of him.

Michael Beach, who plays Fletcher, reminded me of Michael B. Jordan.

The actors were good.

The soundtrack was better than the soundtracks of the time.

The movie received positive reviews, and grossed 47.7 million dollars at the box office against a budget of 15 million.

Rating : Worth a watch !