Prismark10 Sidney Lumet does what he does best. Tell a story about law and order in New York and look into police corruption.Timothy Hutton plays Reilly, a young former cop turned assistant district attorney asked by the police commissioner (Patrick O'Neal) to look into the shooting of a Puerto Rican criminal by detective Brennan (Nick Nolte) who claims it was self defence. The commissioner tells him that its an open and shut case and also tells him that if its not in the Q&A then it did not happen.However Hutton is determined and finds flaws in Brennan's story and the case leads him to a charismatic Puerto Rican crime boss called Bobby Tex (Armand Assante) whose wife was once Hutton's girlfriend until he discovered she was mixed race.It looks like Brennan is an out of control cop who is trying to get rid of some select criminals on behalf of someone at the top. The commissioner turns out to be a hypocrite as he later tells Hutton that he is taking the Q&A too seriously.Nolte gives a larger than live performance as the foul mouthed, racist, homophobic, brutish cop who is a legend in the department. The first one through the door and is willing to break the law if necessary. His fellow cops know better to cross him and have to put up with his jibes. However he does not run away with the acting stakes as he is matched by Assante and Hutton.Assante gives a scene stealing performance as the drug dealer who just wants to get out of the business alive. He knows Brennan is dangerous and frankly he knows too much hence why he wants out. This was an era when Assante looked to have broken through and had a good run of films in the early 1990s.Timothy Hutton could had been a brat packer in the early 1980s. He was a contemporary of Tom Cruise, Sean Penn but separated from them early on for the simple reason by 1981 he was a best supporting actor Oscar winner. Since then Hutton decided to work with acclaimed directors or make interesting even offbeat films. The result is he might not be as well known today to cinema audiences but he has had a varied filmography.Here Hutton plays the earnest ADA who is out to cross swords with Brennan but he himself is flawed. His father was a cop and might had been on the take. His treatment of his former girlfriend suggests he might also be a racist himself.This is a moderately budget, moody, noir thriller. Ruben Blades matches the mood with his soundtrack. Director Sidney Lumet was in the twilight of his career and this was maybe his last great film. Of course he was probably jaded with the criminal justice system by then and you always sense the film has a cynical and depressed air about it. That the system is rotten to the core and cannot be fixed.Lumet gets his actors to pull out top performances and even some of the minor characters make their mark.

utdman4 all in all i have to say this is a pretty impressive movie,great performance from nick nolte,and good performances from timothy hutton and armand assante, i watched this about 20 years ago and it still holds up today compared to any bent cop movies. Nolte gives and electrifying performance as dirty cop mike brennan, up against the younger asst district att, (hutton) who is given a clear cut case of self defence starts to dig deeper and finds out that hes up against a legend on the force, and a possible cover up that goes right to the top, throw in an ex-girlfriend who has taken up with a possible witness and you,ve got a great movie from the late great sydney lumet.

bkoganbing Q&A casts Nick Nolte as a hero supercop who is known for cutting corners to get results. The film opens with him doing his own gangland style execution of a Puerto Rican drug dealer. But given his status in the NYPD he's expecting a clean bill of health. As it is a homicide and the Chief of the Homicide Bureau in the New York County DA's office Patrick O'Neal assigns young ADA Timothy Hutton fresh to the Bureau on his first case there. O'Neal much like the Navy in A Few Good Men expecting Tom Cruise to plea bargain the defendants, expects Hutton to do a perfunctory job and clear Nolte. And why not, Hutton is a former cop who went to law school at night to get his degree and he's the son of a former colleague of Nolte's.But Hutton has a string of idealism in him and that complicates matters all around. So do the homicide cops assigned to investigate Nolte and both know him, Charles S. Dutton and Luis Guzman. Also Hutton has an unknown connection to one of the chief witnesses Armand Assante who is another drug dealer, but way up on the scale. He's now married to a woman Hutton used to see when he was a beat cop in the 23rd precinct which is Spanish Harlem played by Jenny Lumet.Director Sidney Lumet loves New York even the dark underbelly of the Big Apple. We've never seen it so systemically corrupt as it is in Q&A. In many ways the most idealistic character in the film is that played by Armand Assante. Another good character is that of Lee Richardson who plays an investigator with the DA's office who has learned to bend and not let things break him. O'Neal has a vested interest in this outcome, but it's one I couldn't get my mind wrapped around. Still he is chillingly malevolent and has big political ambitions. Hutton has a vested interest as well, he's part of the corruption though he doesn't realize it until the end.Nolte is one out of control racist, homophobic cop who like so many homophobes has those latent tendencies in him. Check his interaction with some of the gay and transgender folks involved in this case. Q&A is not one of Lumet's best films, still his all seeing camera makes New York itself part of the cast and he gets some great performances from his ensemble.

agsconnolly Q & A is one of the most enigmatic films I've seen. It veers drastically between exceptionally good and oddly clunky and sometimes threatens to be pretty poor – and not necessarily in that order. It follows an investigation into a shooting by Michael Brennan, an experienced and ferociously tough police officer played magnificently by Nick Nolte in his pomp. The investigation is conducted by Timothy Hutton, who is a true revelation (to me, at least) as an almost equally tough, but mostly non-violent, lawyer. The situation is muddied by a shady drug-runner (Armand Assante) and a manipulative senior officer (Patrick O'Neal).The introduction to Nolte's character is fabulous scene-setting, as he holds court with fellow officers regarding some previous rough-housing of a suspect. The Brennan profile is deep and somewhat mysterious – we like him, we hate him, we are disgusted by him….and we want to see more of him. Speaking of which, the film could have benefited from more interplay between Nolte and Hutton. Hutton's brilliantly understated resilience to the aggression of Nolte and Assante, is a surprise and adds a true edginess to the film. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of the very clunky love interest Hutton has with Assante's mistress – we discover they are former lovers who split up over some fairly tenuous business about her father being black. The continued revisiting of this strained relationship is weak and uses time that one feels could be better served building the Brennan character or at least promoting the Nolte/Hutton feud.Other questionable points in the film concern the various plot turns that are almost casually thrown in and, whilst we don't lose track of proceedings, one feels we could have been given a better idea of how the characters arrive in certain situations. In short, by occasionally rushing things, Q & A often has you wondering if it's a bad film.But there are some moments that are truly great – various scenes with Nolte, and a short office tantrum by Hutton towards the end. You certainly feel that if this film featured more high profile actors it would be considered much more significant than it is currently. I would recommend Q & A to anyone simply for the performances of Nolte and Hutton – and obviously to fans of gritty cop dramas, who will love it anyway.