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Dirty (2005)

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34 comments in total

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43 out of 71 people found the following comment useful :-
Saw the premiere last night, 10 November 2005

Author: burtandivy from United States

Some great performances and a good story. The score was really cool, setting the mood throughout the movie and I thought Gooding did a convincing turn as a cop. Inevitably this will be compared to Denzel Washington's performance in Training Day. And although the budget for this film was probably a quarter of Trainign Day's, I think this film is superior. Why? The last 15 minutes in Training Day were a mess and tainted the movie. Here, the performances are on par and there's no ridiculous John Woo-type chase/action scene to end on. Clifton Collins is great and Gooding reminds us what an actor he can be if his agent gives him a halfway-decent script to work with. I recommend.

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12 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Shows nothing we haven't already seen presented better., 23 April 2006

Author: dilbertsuperman from Baghdad

This is your standard cop drama crap that you can see better done on various television shows about cops. There's no new territory covered here or any new story involved. This is about two partners on the anti-gang unit. Cuba Gooding's character is more comfortable being dirty than his latino partner, who has visions that are representative of his guilt. We come on the scene as Clifton Colinns' character is well on his way to blowing in the entire department to Internal Affairs out of some misguided sense of guilt. This cop is an idiot and makes a number of dense-headed decisions in this movie that lead to a world of sh#4t.

THe plot is mainly watching the deconstruction and demise of our main characters as they continually make the wrong move and get themselves deeper into the gangster infested sh#4t.

A few too many scenes were borrowed from a far superior movie- Training Day.

This is watchable, and forgettable. It's nothing new.

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Pointless and Deceptive, 29 May 2007

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In a Los Angeles dominated by violent gangs and a corrupt LAPD Precinct, the dirty Officer Armando Sancho (Clifton Collins Jr.) is haunted by his guilty since an innocent old man was accidentally killed in an operation with his also dirty partner Salim Adel (Cuba Gooding Jr.). The Internal Affairs is pressing Sancho, who feels split between the loyalty to his mates and his conscience, and he has to make a statement at 6:00 PM. When his superiors Captain Spain (Keith David) and his Lieutenant (Cole Hauser) assign the two cops for an operation dealing drugs apprehended by the police and stored as evidence with a powerful drug dealer, Sancho feels that something is wrong and they have been framed.

"Dirty" has a promising beginning, with the chain of thoughts of Officer Sancho about corruption ("With power came responsibility; with responsibility came opportunity; with opportunity came corruption, a plague where everybody gets sick"). His dramatic feelings, haunted by the ghost of an innocent man and feeling awful as a finger-pointing rat, give the sensation that Sancho is a rich contradictory character to be developed. However, the story is pointless, showing a hopeless society in a city dominated by gangs, lost youth and corrupt police force, but without any message in the end. I had never expected the redemption of any character, but I found the unpleasant plot a caricature and very manipulative view of the LAPD. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Dirty – O Poder da Corrupção" ("Dirty – The Power of the Corruption")

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9 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Really dirty cops, really bad movie..., 1 April 2006

Author: Enchorde from Sweden

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Recap: Two cops, up for an interrogation by Internal Affairs after an incident were an innocent old man got shot, tries to get themselves ahead in the world. Because it is not a question if they are dirty or not, it is a question if Internal Affairs will buy their story or not. Because these two cops, seemingly enlisted straight from the gangs on the street, are really corrupt, stealing, harassing and dealing in confiscated drugs. But they still have the confidence from their superiors, because they are even more corrupt, running a drug business from inside the police. Now the two cops, Adel and Sancho, get an opportunity to climb the ladder into some real action and money, or is it an opportunity to get shot...?

Comments: First of all, I do not live in USA, so I may not be the best to judge if it is realistic or not, I can only make comments out of my own perspective. And there is two main points that glaringly stand out above all the rest. The first is that the movie must be attempting to break a record in using the f-word in as many versions as much as possible, because it is used constantly. But that may be. The other, and more fatal point, is that those two cops, and their entire unit, from top to bottom, is so corrupt, so dirty, that it is not plausible that they could have continued to operate. Evidence (mostly drugs and money) that constantly keep disappearing when handled by their unit, harassing civilians in broad daylight in view of a lot of people, stealing things from people. They would have been shut down quicker and thrown in jail than you could say "dirty cop". And with plausibility out the window, everything falls.

Gooding Jr may be doing a quick-mouthed character once again and Collins Jr a haunted dirty cop with something resembling a conscience, and they do it pretty well, but when the foundation of the story the act in is gone, that hardly matters. Also, there are some interesting roles played by famous musicians, but that too get lost in the interference. I just felt the lack of faith in the story, and from that point, nothing could save the movie. I had some expectations, but I was disappointed.

3/10

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19 out of 34 people found the following comment useful :-
Strong delivery of cast and crew makes Dirty a clean and polished ride, 7 February 2006

Author: Maddis from United States

Dirty will unfortunately draw comparison to Training Day, but if you can get past the similarities of the cover of this book, the content will come back strong and stand alone as a polished original. This movie reminds you that with decisive, deliberate direction, an excellent score and solid performances, a routine storyline can serve as the boilerplate foundation for the more difficult aspects of film-making to shine.

Collins has always been a favorite of mine to watch; almost singlehandedly destroying stereotypes of Latino actors while simultaneously stewing in the shallow pool of roles offered him. His stand out performances in 187 and Tigerland have only been improved in Dirty with his ability to bring humanity and sincerity to his otherwise bland characters. Gooding pulls it off in the end, almost through the sheer pleasure of watching him portray such an off-type character that the "over the top" performance was a necessity to draw your attention away from the believability of his playing the role. It was as if with every screamed expletive he was daring you to not take him seriously.

Dirty is a poster child film for how a director through what would appear to be either deliberate, clever and wise choices for the cast and crew or was very lucky in the outcome. But to this writer that is the magic of film-making. The end result of this film looks like a seamless collaboration of professionals turning out what is an interesting, exciting, visceral portrayal of bad cops and worse cops trying to outplay the system. Luck can only take you so far, and no doubt every component played a part in making this film work. The cinematography keeps the grit and grime of the streets in full focus, and the action and sometimes brutal violence is always just around the corner to snap your attention back into place as the plot moves forward.

To compare this movie to any other is doing it a disservice. Dirty takes any preconceived lemons it clearly had as a disadvantage going in, and made lemonade worth a second glass. Try it, you won't be disappointed.

7/10 - Maddis

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Ignorance is bliss, 9 July 2007

Author: masticore84 from Chile

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This review is directed at the other critics as well as to this movie.

Its clear this movie shows reality, people giving this movie a bad review because of their own goody two shoes experiences should not even bother writing anything here.

Its called Dirty for a reason, its meant to be violent and the swearing is real, have you ever hung around a group of people from 15-22 for more than 10 minutes? Most people don't need to swear perfectly to the punchline thats not real and in reality most people overuse it, I'm sick of people attempting to discredit this movie for such idiotic reasons.

The cast of this movie is great, they set the ambiance for this movie and they generate a plot for it.

Yes this movie has a plot, if you want an underlined detailed plot i would recommend going to watch the wizard of oz and watch Dorothy walk the yellow brick road , maybe even then you will fail to see where she is going.

If people want to think this kind of thing does not really happen and this movie is created for people who love trash think again.

This movie is good in all aspects. i completely recommend it to people who want more than a movie and not just to pass time, its a movie to think about it afterwards.

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21 out of 40 people found the following comment useful :-
Rare thoughtful action movie, 17 January 2006

Author: jcz-1 from United States

I saw this movie at the AFI Festival in Hollywood, and it struck me as an incredibly sophisticated work of film-making. Chris Fisher took what could be a tired genre -- the corrupt cop story -- and by focusing on the psychology of the characters, breathed new life into it. Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s portrayal of a cop who has lost his moorings is mesmerizing, funny, heartbreaking, very engaging. But it is Clifton Collins, Jr. who represents the moral center of this movie. An incredible performance, the best I've seen in years. A gang-banger stricken with an attack of conscience. Fisher sets up a brutal world and then finds a glint of light in it. I mean, it's easy to behave morally in a sheltered, safe, middle-class environment. But these cops -- the movie is based on the L.A. Rampart scandal -- must confront a violent, deadly, compromised landscape at every turn. What I most liked about Dirty is that it was an action movie that didn't require you to leave your brains at the door.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
no hope, 19 May 2007

Author: geomac39 from Australia

there was a review quote " If you liked " Traing Day " then you will like this. No, its way past Training Day in violence. Way past anything I've seen in the gritty reality stakes. A bad part of Los Angeles, where the population, it seems to me, is split between predators and prey.... and even the prey are opportunists who will turn to crime when it suits them. Thats the message of this movie. A corner of Tinseltown where civilisation does not exist, where anarchy rules, where the police are the most powerful criminal gang and will do anything to stay there. Everything's corrupt, except possibly the impotent Internal affairs office. Police officer played by Cuba Gooding Jr says to his partner played by Clifton Collins Jr. " Don't you get it ? there ARE no gangs, we've got rid of them all and WE are the only gang left " A good movie, but one that left a strong feeling of foreboding in me, and a realisation that all of us depend on a very thin veneer of civilisation, which, when overstressed can collapse in ruins.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
horrible!, 7 January 2007

Author: jtomasson-1 from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This is an amazingly bad film. My wife and I, having been forced to chose between a Julia Robert's flick called Closure, opted for this shoot 'em up cops and robber movie instead thinking since it's got Cuba Gooding Jr. how bad could it be. Turns out that even with CGJ in it, Dirty still bombs bigger than Hiroshima.

The only thing challenging about this movie, besides not fast forwarding right through it, is trying to count how many times the words 'f***', 'motherf***er','hommie', and 's***' are used. It seems that these are about all the words necessary in order for Chris Fisher to construct a scene. For example...

'Yo you're a motherf***er for f***ing my s*** up, man. Hommie, I ought cap your f***ing ass you mother motherf***er' - a horrible sentence yet one found in various configurations countless times throughout Dirty.

Besides the profanities - which I might mention I have no problem with in general as long as they're used to accentuate a point - the other problem I had with Dirty was the plastic characters.I also loved the scene with the drug dealing Canadian Hells Angels - who are easily identified because they're carrying...hockey sticks (!) and uttering the word 'eh' every second they get.

Overall, this movie was a complete tomato and definitely not worth a penny. Spare yourself the agony of watching Dirty and see Ishtar instead. You'll be better off in the long run!

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Feeble, 8 June 2006

Author: adwalters-1 from Wanzhou, China

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The started out OK, if cliché-ridden and cheesy in its choice of plot line. Cuba Gooding, for all his merits, does not stand up as a convincing street personality. His gutless and blowhard portrayal must have been in part intentional due to the 'tryhard' nature of his character needlessly revealed by his colleague, but was he really supposed to show up as that pathetic? His character came across as fake in the Nth degree, and never once did I take him seriously. Clifton Collins, Jr is marginally better, often because he opens his mouth less, and the captain (praised in another review)? As soon as he said something about it being a 'war' out there, I knew the script would never allow even a passably meaningful performance to emerge.

I come from London and have spent plenty of time in the army as well, listening to glorious bouts of expletive ridden verbal diarrhoea, so listening to the uninspired tourette's-like motherf****r tirades where the aforementioned crops up every other word seems confusing and pointless, rather than real. If anybody really talks in that way in LA, I feel truly sorry for them - all that wasted effort.

The story was predictable and telegraphed, with not even an ounce of the plotting sophistication that made 'Training Day' a surprisingly good film on the first watch. In my view, Training Day didn't take itself too seriously, thus making the more cartoonish elements of the plot bearable, but this one just serves to annoy after a while with its preachy nature and attempts to be a serious and hard hitting flick.

About the time of Russian roulette, I became too embarrassed to watch any more of this garbage, and turned it off , as I found (not to my surprise) that I really didn't give a monkeys what would happen to the gangsters/policeman, or anyone else. The person I feared most for was myself, as a morning viewing meant that I could have been quietly cursing for the rest of the day about the loss of precious hours.

Just Don't.

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