I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Don't listen to the negative reviews

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Just finished watching this, and I was pleasantly surprised by what it had to offer. All of the characters portrayed were done so with just the right amount of depth, respect and for lack of a better word.. Love. It's quite an interesting story of a tightly knitted group of cops who went a little bit too far, and for one of them, it became too much of a burden, yet he still has to remain loyal to his fellow officers.The movie plays like a halfway gangster, halfway courtroom - drama. And also contains a perfect amount of emotion in my opinion.I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in undercover cop movies, courtroom dramas, gangster movies and law and order in general.

Police officer Daniel Ciello (Treat Williams) is talked into helping a commission that's investigating police corruption. Naturally things go wrong, he starts to have strong doubts about what he's doing and he starts to fall apart.Rightfully forgotten drama. I saw it in a mostly empty theatre back in 1981. I knew Lumet was a great director and I thought Williams was a good actor (I had seen him in "Hair"). It starts off OK but then quickly falls apart. There are WAY too many characters to keep track of and a bewildering amount of dialogue. SOME of the dialogue is needed for the story but most isn't. Characters and situations are bought up seemingly at random and then disappear. The almost three hour running time is unnecessary. This could have easily been done in two hours. I got bored and annoyed by the slow-moving script and all the pointless characters and situations. I completely gave up trying to understand the story and I ended up having trouble staying awake by the last hour! I only stayed in the vain hope that it would make sense and improve. It didn't. Also Williams was terrible in his role. He chewed the scenery so much it got embarrassing! Most critics loved this film (for some reason) but a few pointed out that it was way too long and a few outright hated it. It was a bomb at the box office and quickly forgotten. You can safely skip this one.

(Warning, Spoilers within) I haven't seen a movie about cops before or since this was made that is as great as this. This is probably Treat Williams best role. The bond that the policeman have in this movie is amazing. It is painful to watch some of the things happen, that happen. The other performances are great too. The late Jerry Orbach is great, as well as Carmine Caridi (an underrated actor), who plays a crooked detective. I found it to be an exciting and very tense and very sad film, as it showed all of the different characters. Between the cops and the prosecutors and the mobsters and the bail bondsmen and and the judges, drug dealers and the junkies, nobody seemed to be relaxed. Everybody is on edge, which makes them scary and dangerous to be around. Considering that the song "Love will keep us together", by Captain and Tennelle, is on the soundtrack was interesting to me. If you watch the film you will see what I mean. This film definitely needs to be talked about in the future when the late Sidney Lumet's career is discussed. He did a great job directing it.

Pletchner from REPO MAN sticking his head through a window pane during the Columbians' bust; the chair collapse in the IA office; Orbach roughing up the state's attorney; the junkie chase in the rain; accidentally handing a receipt from the DA's office to the crooked bondsman - these are dynamite scenes equal to some of Lumet's best work. The supporting cast and occasional gritty dialog are Lumet hallmarks. The camera's always in the right place, the city looks dirty, the cops look like hoods, the hoods look like cops, all's well in the looks department.But this movie is 2 hours too long at 3 hours, and Treat Williams, though decked out in a series of wonderful coats, gives an atypically uneven performance. The Lumet-Jay Allen script also is terribly imbalanced, burying Williams under awful expositional speeches. Depthful insight is sacrificed to an epic, shallow and ultimately trite style. Lumet got the best out of Chayefsky and Waldo Salt and Mamet, and Pacino and Steiger and Dan O'Herlihy and a lot of people, and he is among the best directors in terms of camera movement and B&W lighting; but he also made THE WIZ, THE ANDERSON TAPES, and GUILTY AS SIN. He once said that the best work comes from preparing for the miracle to happen. Sometimes it doesn't happen. It happened several times on this set, but if you're going to write this many monologues your name better be Shakespeare; and if you're going to direct this many monologues, your name better be something other than Sidney Lumet. (for other Lumet monologue embarrassments, see Sean Connery's drunken confession in THE OFFENCE.)