Nick Nolte has been one of my favorite actors for a very long time. I first spotted him in the highly enjoyable drive-in classic, Return to Macon County. Shortly afterwards, he appeared in The Deep and Who'll Stop the Rain (reviewed here) and I was hooked. He's the perfect blend of rugged masculinity and sensitive acting talent.
One of his best performances came in 1990's Q & A, a crime drama written and directed by Sidney Lumet. It was certainly his most ferocious.
The movie opens with NYPD detective Mike Brennan (Nolte) ambushing a lower level dealer and shooting him dead in cold blood. He plants a gun on the corpse and frames the incident as justifiable homicide. Newly minted prosecuting attorney Aloysius Francis Reilly (Timothy Hutton) is assigned the case, which his boss, Chief Homicide Prosecutor Kevin Quinn (Patrick O'Neal) considers a 'cut and dried' acquittal.
Hutton gradually discovers not only holes in Nolte's story, but evidence that he is seriously compromised and corrupt. He finds links between Nolte and a Puerto Rican crime lord (Armand Assante in a very Armand Assante role) and the Mafia. As the investigation progresses and Nolte realizes that Hutton is onto him, Nolte turns his frightening intimidation and violence against possible witnesses, his criminal associates, and even Hutton.
The key to the whole case turns on a trans informant named Montalvo. All the players hunt him: Hutton sees them as key to his case, Assante sees them a bargaining chip, and Nolte wants them dead. The film climaxes with a pile up of bodies, a bloody shootout, and a Noirish, downbeat resolution of the case.
Q & A resembles as a very high quality episode of Law and Order. A crime is committed, the police investigate, the initial assumptions prove wrong, then the prosecutors take over. Both came out in 1990, so maybe the form developed from something in the air.
As usual for a Lumet movie, the cast is excellent. In addition to Nolte, Assante, and Hutton, Q & A gives Luis Guzman and Charles Dutton meaty roles as honest cops, and features Dominic Chianese (Junior from the Sopranos) as a Mafia go-between. Lee Richardson shines as Hutton's world-weary mentor, who embodies the cynicism of the story.
Q & A has its flaws. The whole subplot between Hutton's character and his ex-fiance, who is now Assante's common law wife adds nothing but cheap melodrama to the film. You could imagine that the studio pointed out that there were absolutely no female characters in the movie and insisted on a love interest. That would explain why writer/director Lumet didn't seem to put much thought or passion into it. He did cast his daughter in the role, however.
Whether it's a flaw or not, Q & A is drenched in racial, ethnic, and homophobic slurs. The quantity of this ugly dialog might even give Quentin Tarantino a pause. I'm sure that Lumet was trying to make a point about the inherent racism and homophobia of the police, but I think the point would have been made with at least 20% less invective.
And the soundtrack by Salsa musician Ruben Blades is terrible. It's the sort of soft rock salsa better suited for a 1980s Chuck Norris movie where he's going after Cuban drug dealers. I think even the producers of a Miami Vice spin-off would have passed on it.
Ultimately, this movie belongs to Nick Nolte. His Mike Brennan character serves as the dark mirror universe version of his gruff but lovable Detective Jack Cates from 48 Hours. He's captivating when he's relating a horrifying anecdote to his fellow police officers and utterly terrifying when he corners a victim. In one scene, his face pushed inches from Hutton's, you watch an entire novel unfold on his face as he realizes that Hutton has turned his prosecutorial focus onto him. Masterful.
Previously, I reviewed one of Sidney Lumet's last crime movies: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Like that film, Q & A doesn't quite rank among his very best, but that's mainly because his very best is among the best Hollywood has ever offered.