Q & A

title: Q & A
year: 1990
cast: Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton, Armand Assante, Luis Guzman
rating: **

Nick Nolte’s racist killer cop steals the show. That’s until Timothy Hutton, as the New York police department's idealist D.A., starts moving in. Then Nolte becomes a villain who must be stopped, turning his devilish manipulator into an over-the-top serial killer. Director Sidney Lumet revamps his SERPICO and PRINCE OF THE CITY agenda, showing a few good cops swimming in a barrel of snaky corruption. Armand Assante is effective as a drug kingpin who openly questions Nolte's "self defense" killing of a lowlife, causing his sycophant cop buddies to realize the truth. But it’s Timothy Hutton’s forced Brooklyn accent, and the horrendously melodramatic scenes with his ex-fiance - now bedded down with Assante - that turns a semi-entertaining (yet highly manipulative) crime drama into daytime soap.