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"&lt;p&gt;Esteemed director Sidney Lumet &lt;em&gt;(Network, Serpico, The Verdict)&lt;/em&gt; has been enduring a career slump with &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=\"../../../movies/reviews/family-business-19891215\"&gt;Family Business&lt;/a&gt;, A Stranger Among Us&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Guilty As Sin.&lt;/em&gt; Don&amp;apos;t expect this clumsily contrived police melodrama &amp;#x2013; his 40th film &amp;#x2013; to lift him up. Don&amp;apos;t count him out, either. At 72, Lumet still knows how to connect with actors.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;wm:embed type=\"related\"&gt;&lt;/wm:embed&gt;&lt;p&gt;Andy Garcia leads a strong cast as Sean Casey, a lawyer handpicked by Manhattan District Attorney Morgenstern (Ron Leibman) to be his successor. The case that should make Sean &amp;#x2013; taking on liberal lawyer Sam Vigoda (Richard Dreyfuss) &amp;#x2013; backfires when the trial introduces an issue of police corruption that hits home for him. Is his beloved cop father, Liam (Ian Holm), on the take? Is Sean&amp;apos;s sexual fling with Peggy Lindstrom (Lena Olin), who works with Vigoda, an ethics violation?&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;Oh, please. The screenplay Lumet has adapted from Robert Daley&amp;apos;s novel &lt;em&gt;Tainted Evidence&lt;/em&gt; would wither on its clich&amp;#xE9;d vine if it weren&amp;apos;t for the juice Lumet gets out of the actors. Even he can&amp;apos;t stop Leibman from chewing scenery, but Dreyfuss is electric as a character loosely based on the late William Kunstler. Garcia&amp;apos;s coiled intensity, wasted in the scenes with Olin&amp;apos;s stock Delilah, works well with the gifted Holm as the father whose conflict with his son gives Lumet&amp;apos;s negligible &lt;em&gt;Night&lt;/em&gt; its fleeting moments of hard truth.&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/night-falls-on-manhattan-19970516>