Back in 1998, I watched a cool monster horror thriller called Deep Rising. This is the movie where I first became aware of Treat Williams. I hadn’t seen many other films with Treat Williams outside of Deep Rising and The Phantom. Sidney Lumet’s Prince of the City is the earliest film I’ve seen the actor in. And it wasn’t anything I would have suspected!
Prince of the City is a neo-Noir crime thriller starring Treat Williams who plays Danny Ciello, a corrupt New York narcotics detective, and is part of a Special Investigations Unit. That unit is referred to as “Princes of the City” because they aren’t supervised and use illegal tactics to get what they want.
Ciello, after beating up a drug dealer and seeing what heroin has done to his brother, has a change of heart and decides to work with a special commission that investigates police corruption. He goes undercover to weed out the corrupt policemen but the sins of Ceillo’s past comes back to haunt him when it’s time to take the policemen to the courtroom! Ciello learns that no one can be trusted and even his closest friends and partners are in on the corrupt activity.
Prince of the City is what would be considered an epic, running for nearly three hours. Despite the long running time, the characters and story will hold your interest as it is a Sidney Lumet film after all! This is a hard hitting, no-nonsense look at corruption in the police department. Maybe, it was a bit overlong, and perhaps the story could have been told in two hours, but overall, this is a wonderful film with some terrific acting from the cast that includes horror screen legend Lance Henriksen, along with James Tolkan, Jerry Orbac, Matthew Laurence, Lindsay Krause and Carmine Caridi of The Godfather II and The Godfather III films. Treat Williams performance for this film was so good that he was nominated for Best Actor for the Golden Globe awards.
Prince of the City arrives on Blu-ray, courtesy of Warner Archive. The image quality for this release is fantastic. The colors are bold with sharp details to the scenery during the presentation. Textures are also superb, capturing the look of a film that came from the seventies or the early eighties (the film was made in 1981). The image does not have that appearance where it could have been made in 2021. Film grain is present throughout, maintaining an organic look to it. Skin tones appear accurate as well. The image quality for Prince of the City is basically another Warner Archive masterpiece.
Warner applies an English DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio track for their Blu-ray and the dialog and other action noises such as fights and characters yelling their lines in emotional outbursts sounding perfectly fine. Optional English subtitles are available.
There are two extras for this release that were ported over the from the DVD. Prince of the City: The Real Story is a documentary, produced by Laurent Bouzereau, is a fascinating look at the behind the scenes for this film. The other extra is a theatrical trailer.
Dare I say Treat Williams are in for a real “treat” on this Blu-ray offering. The movie has never looked or sounded as it does now. If you have not seen this movie and have a few hours to kill, Prince of the City will be worth your time!
Prince of the City
Director- Sidney Lumet
Cast- Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach
Country of Origin- US
Distributor – Warner Archive / Warner Home Video
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date – 11/8/21