NARC (R, 2002)

Against the backdrop of Detroit's industrial rot, the film (actually shot in Toronto) follows narcotics officer Nick Tellis (Jason Patric) as he is reluctantly partnered with Henry Oak (Ray Liotta) to find who killed Oak's former partner, an undercover narcotics officer.

Fans of this genre will find that NARC provides a tightly edited, intense story with good dialogue and standout performances by both Patric and Liotta. Tellis' repressed electricity provides a good counterpoint to Liotta's plodding Oak, who emanates a protective paternalism for his partner(s) and their families. Oak, as solid as his name, is blankly brutal toward anyone who stands in his way and clearly doesn't trust his superiors, who sway to the political pressure to pin the crime on a white suspect. Suspects Beery (Busta Rhymes) and Steeds (Richard Chevolleau) are brutally beaten as he seeks something more than retribution.

Narc is very bloody and violent, with an adrenaline-pumping opening sequence that evokes the unblinking carnage of the beach scene from Saving Private Ryan. From the first jolting shots of the hand-held camera following the escaping drug dealer in his sprint for freedom, you know that there will be no day-saving heroics and that the protagonists are as scarred as a junkie's arm.