Brought to you by the director of Miracle—that Olympic hockey movie starring the always great Kurt Russell from a few years back—you'd be forgiven for thinking Pride and Glory was another sports film. The first seven minutes are all football and screaming and some dramatic lines about blocking or passing or running or whatever, and we were left thinking Oh, Ed Norton, football, what am I even doing here?

But then it turns out it's not a sports movie at all, but rather a cop drama set on the streets of NYC. At which point we were thinking Oh, Ed Norton, cops, sigh ... one day we'll bother to pay attention to a goddamn trailer!

It goes like so: After four NYPD officers are killed in an ambush, Chief of Manhattan Detectives Francis Tierney, Sr., (Jon Voight) asks his son, Ray (Norton), to lead the investigation. What at first looks like a routine drug bust gone wrong takes a terrible turn for the worse when the evidence starts to point toward Ray's own brother and brother-in-law, both also cops. (We have since re-watched the trailer: this is pretty much all in there.)

So it sounds a little familiar, right? Not familiar in a laundry-list of plot line ripoffs sort of way necessarily, just familiar in that right, this is what happens with cops and don't we all know this sort of way. Good cop/bad cop crap. This time it's the broken hero with a troubled past, Ray, rising above it all to rid the city of crime and injustice. Sure, we're shocked with violent, disturbing scenes, a whole lot of camera movement, and as much drama and sadness as could possibly fit into a two hour script. It's just that all the murder, drug dealing, rioting, cancer, and divorce seem heaped on unnecessarily.

There's also a feeble attempt to bring in a sense of The Godfather. But then of course there is, right? The patriarch Francis Tierney, Sr., tries to rule over his cop sons, Francis, Jr. (Noah Emmerich) and Ray, and son-in-law Jimmy Egan (Colin Farrell) to protect "the family." Their forced dialogue often discusses keeping deep dark secrets in this "family" to protect their name and honor, blah blah blah.

Voight is actually pretty good, bringing some much-needed comedy relief to the film by bumbling around in a drunken stupor. And, surprisingly, supporting cast member John Ortiz, the only cop with cornrows (guess what side he's on?), has some interesting, authentic moments as well. Maybe it's because he's done lots of Law and Order.

But, like, bring on the stereotypes! The cops are drunks, druggies, bullies, Irish, and mostly corrupt. There is the accompanying cheesy dialogue you can already imagine. The drug dealers? They are, of course, Spanish-speaking and wearing big coats and gold chains. The only redeeming part of this is that we learned that Ed Norton speaks Spanish! (Granted, we do not know Spanish. It was confusing but enlightening. Norton? Spanish? Righteous!)

Norton, whose past work (Fight Club, American History X) has proven his ability as an actor, does the best he can with such a pigeon-holed character. But when things culminate with a fist fight between good cop Norton and dirty cop Farrell in an Irish bar with an Irish jig playing in the background, it's pretty much time to head to a bar of your very own.