This is How Movies Should Be Made

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Perfect cast and a good story

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

How your comment makes the top response for this film proves not only how naive you are, but how culturally bankrupt and immoral this nation is. The fact is, there are pockets of Russia and China here in the US not on community levels, but in the government as well. You have never heard of SERPICO or Rodney King obviously, it is no surprising Americans are completely out of touch. They elect a man like Bush, who invades a hornets nest, indebted your children and grandchildren, and runs a police state media called Fox network. The US government installed Pinochet in Peru, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, then orchestrate his execution. You are saying there is no such thing as the mafia or corrupt police and racism is not real. This film shows and tests the police as humans. Not everyone likes being pushed around by the police and not everyone is as passive and out of touch as you, thank God, if he exists.

I was hesitating between giving 8 or 9 and decided for a 9 when I thought "It was so difficult watching this film - it really showed well how frustrating some things can be in Life; I'm exhausted".And that in itself sums up this film : it does not have the top notch direction of Crash which won the 2006 Oscars, but, just like Crash, I was on the edge of my seat till the very very end of the film. I was punching the wall out of feeling as frustrated as some of the characters, I was tense and worried that someone was going to get shot, I was a total ball of nerves by the end. And for that alone I went for a 9 rather than an 8 : this film is 10 out of 10 in terms of drawing the viewer into the frustrations of police corruption, racism, sexism, cover-ups, minor mistakes which come back to haunt you big time, the effect on communities, fate. It is not a traditional Police film, it is a hundred times more than that.If you liked Crash 2006 (the one which won the Oscars), then you'll like this film. Guarantee.

I just saw _The Glass Shield_ for the first time since it was released theatrically. I'm very glad to say it hasn't gone stale with time. Despite the violent overtones, the film is a subtle and compelling parable on race, power, and sex in the US. It won't satisfy anyone with the attention span of a fruit-fly or a fetish for blood and guts, but it gets under your skin (so to speak) if you pay it the slightest bit of attention.As a side note — this is one of the very few feature films chosen by the Whitney Museum of American Art for its biennial surveys of contemporary art (there was another film that year as well, _The Hours and Times_, also excellent).

Try to fit in or decide to do the right thing? Ambition is one of the things that stands in the way of J.J. Johnson(Michael Boatman)...the other is that he is a rookie state trooper with the LA Sheriff's Department and the first black officer at his first assigned station. Who is he teamed with? The station's only female deputy Deb Fields(Lori Petty). This movie progresses with nonstop suspense and explosive decisions to be made. Johnson and Fields uncover mass corruption when they discover that a well known criminal(Ice Cube)has been framed and jailed for a vicious murder. Do they break the unwritten code of silence or do the right thing? Well...what makes for a better movie? This gritty police yarn is filled with obligatory violence and an all-star cast of actors like: Richard Anderson, M. Emmet Walsh, Michael Ironside, Bernie Casey and Elliott Gould. I was really impressed with Boatman and Ice Cube. On the other hand I have never been or will be a fan of Petty. Overall the truth proves to be pretty damn powerful.