Customer Reviews

Internal Affairs

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This film is called "Internal Affairs" based on Andy Garcia's character Raymond Avilar, his IAB affiliation within the LAPD, and his investigation of corrupt cop Dennis Peck (Richard Gere). Then again, is it? I think it's a very spicy double entendre as well, in reference to the steamy sexual undercurrent that spices this Police thriller.

The mind games that go on between Gere and Garcia are intense, and thoroughly entertaining. Gere plays street cop Dennis Peck, a ruthless manipulator of his co-workers to better his own self interests, and of women for his voracious carnal needs. Despite being on his 4th marriage with kids all over, and one on the way from wife #4, played by Annabella Sciorra, he takes who he wants to bed, when he wants. Other mens wives are his favorite score of all, and he beds all his conquests concurrently. Garcia's Raymond Avilar, is investigating Peck to see exactly how he is affording all the wives and kids on a cops salary. He and partner Laurie Metcalf, an admitted lesbian he is partners with, uncover Peck's secret passel of lucrative corruption. It becomes their shared ambition to bust Peck.

Again, this is an extremely sexy movie, and having leads like Garcia and Gere don't make it too difficult to pull off. Raymond is married to the very beautiful Kathleen (Nancy Travis), and theirs is obviously a very passionate marriage. There are strong elements of jealousy mixed into their relationship, and Peck plays upon that in a great scene where he faces off with Raymond outside the Division headquarters. Gere's deliciously vicious Peck starts talking about "Wives", namely Raymonds. Peck had previously told Raymond that this was a taboo subject when Raymond questioned him about his partner Van Stretch's (William Baldwin) wife, who Peck of course, is sleeping with. However, he has fun getting Raymond riled up as he reveals what he knows about Kathleen, and surmising that she is bored and may be looking for "strange", a Peck term for infidelity. Peck explicitly tells Raymond, HE will be mentoring Kathleen sexually, very soon. This haunts Raymond, and there are interesting camera vignettes where Raymond flashes to thoughts of Peck and his wife together when he's been drinking as Peck has driven him to do. Director Mike Figgis is especially adept in creating a nightmarish experience for Raymond that we can feel while viewing it.

I personally love this film, and think it has enough of everything to really keep you thoroughly engrossed throughout. The most outstanding thing about it is the chemistry between all the leads. These characters feel very real, and work beautifully together. There is a terrific noir mood with the innate evilness that Gere brings to the screen so convincingly. This is enhanced by Garcia and Travis' roles which are smolderingly full of a heated sexual ambience. Although it's a sexy police thriller like Paul Verhoeven's "Basic Instinct", "Internal Affairs" has a more simmering quality, and it's less obvious in it's agenda.

This movie is one to watch with the one you love, be sure to keep a fire extinguisher nearby for the subsequent sizzle. It's truly one of the best crime dramas ever lensed, because it goes beyond that to the personal and "Internal Affairs" between the characters. That's why I think the title refers to more than just the most feared division of the police department.

INTERNAL AFFAIRS is the story of a fight : the fight of a young member of the cops of the cops' team against a rotten member of the LAPD. Andy "RAMON" Garcia is hispanic, cold, married to a beautiful member of the artistic world of L.A. and dedicated to his job. Richard "DENNIS" Gere, on the contrary, is a cop with no morals at all, living with his two ex-wives and six children in the same house and enjoying the fortune he has illegally made during his spare time.

You soon understand that there is a second fight going on, the one Ramon has to carry on against himself. And the description of Ramon's stress is curiously the most interesting aspect of INTERNAL AFFAIRS. Dennis will become the broken mirror into which Ramon looks at himself. The image that Richard "Dennis" Gere reflects in the direction of Andy Garcia is vicious ; it's the image of an anglo-american living an hispanic way of life with his entire family around him. Hard to swallow for a Ramon without any single child !

So Ramon will go through a terrible night during which all the temptations will pass before his eyes ; jealousy, sex, intemperance and so on. The high point of this night is reached when he slaps his wife screaming in his mother tongue, in spanish. At this moment, one understands that INTERNAL AFFAIRS is also the story of a man who has to kill a part of himself in order to survive in the world he has chosen to live in.

Don't be afraid ! Mike Figgis' INTERNAL AFFAIRS is in the first place a wonderful cop movie with Richard Gere in the best role of his career and lot of action too. This movie is clearly one of the best of the genre of the 90's.

A DVD for your library.

NB : Attention ! the jacket announces english subtitles as bonus feature. It's wrong. No subtitles at all !

Why is it that some of our best actors give their best performances when they are playing bad guys? Maybe it's the change of pace; one probably gets tired of being the hero in film after film; but they clearly seem to revel in the opportunity of playing a straight-up jerk once in a while. In "Internal Affairs", we have Richard Gere coming down off his movie idol pedestal and giving a devastating performance as Dennis Peck, a cop who gives corruption a whole new definition. This guy makes Satan look like a boy scout. He carries on a brazen affair with his partner's wife; arranges to have his partner whacked when the police department's internal affairs bureau begins investigating his partner's extracurricular activities a little too closely and his partner is about to implicate him in the mess; agrees to execute a wealthy businessman's elderly parents who are taking too long to die so that he can come into his inheritance (meanwhile seducing the businessman's wife as part of his fee for service); and tries to seduce the wife of Raymond Avila, the internal affairs cop played by Andy Garcia, when Avila starts to suspect that Peck isn't the poster-boy cop his precinct command has made him out to be. The movie tries to show us what Peck thinks is his softer side; he's a devoted father to his offspring, but we can see that to Peck his children are nothing but trophies; he's still in his thirties but he already has 8 by three former wives and his fourth wife is expecting his ninth. Peck's children are extensions of himself; his wives are baby-making machines, and his partners and co-workers are pawns to be used for his own nefarious purposes. When Avila realizes that Peck has tried to destroy him as a cop and as a man by attempting to seduce his wife, the battle lines are drawn; Avila, of course, will be Peck's nemesis, but it's fascinating to watch each of them try to bring the other down. There are excellent performances by the supporting cast, particularly Nancy Travis as Avila's wife; Laurie Metcalf as Amy Wallace, Avila's partner who proves she's a tough a cop as any man, and William Baldwin as Van Stretch, Peck's hapless and ultimately gutless partner, brave enough to beat up on his wife but not strong enough to stand up to Peck and the venality he represents. Peck is one of the more intriguing anti-heroes on film; just when we think he's hit rock bottom, he takes a shovel and starts to dig himself in even deeper; he sees Avila's decency as a weakness he can manipulate just as he has played and destroyed everyone who crosses him. Some people, especially those who don't like to see law enforcement portrayed in a negative light, are going to be offended by this movie, but the film doesn't tar all policemen with the same brush; it's a fascinating and disturbing voyage into the mind of one very bad cop.

What makes thsi movie so good is the mind war going on between Andy Garcia and Richard Gere's characters. Garcia is tryign to unravel the labyrinthe of villainy and insanity that Gere has created as a corrupt cop. Gere is actually at first tickled that he's under investigation (thru his young partner Billy Baldwin) because he controls so much of his life. Multiple women/wives all living together, lots of kids, drug money, police power. But when Garcia of Internal Affairs starts getting too close Gere actually sets up a seduction of his wife that looks like one thing, is another thing and leads up to a very erotic, emotional scene between Garcia and his wife. Laurie metlcalf also plays a lesbian cop who Garcia briefly butts heads with as they team up. The nice thing about this movie is how everyone makes sense as a character and no one is entirely comfortable with the other characters. Loyalty is shown as a natural growth and betrayal a likely outcome. Very mature, strong film from gere, who makes an effort it seems to choose characters that have an internalworld going on that the watcher has to fathom about as he slowly lets possibilities, concepts slip out of what the motivations may be. Garcia is fantastic too. An incredible actor himself who chooses movies that allow his sublte, slightly repressed intensity to boil to the surface. Garcia, I hate comparisons, is very much like Al Pacino of the 70's.

This Good Cop vs Bad Cop thriller is very good, Richard Gere shows his nasty side as a corrupt police officer that will do anything to keep his life from becoming complicated, he has racketering operatons & money laundering operations, & can for the right price arrange murders & cover it up very nicely, he is also a womanizer that somehow manages to have a married life that looks on the surface pretty normal,that is until Garcia, a newly promoted Internal Affairs officer begins investigating Gere's partner on an unrelated incident, feeling threatened, Gere begins to complicate things thus giving Garcia suspicion about Gere's involvement with certain shady individuals, when guilt begins to get the best of Gere's partner, he is killed in a setup orchestrated by Gere, Garcia sensing that Gere had it done begins to investigate deeper, thus beginning a cat & mouse game between the two, Gere fully aware of Garcia's determination begins a series of distractions, one involving Garcia's wife who has a meeting with Gere who is pretending to be Garcia's boss, knowing that he is being watched, Gere gives Garcia the illusion that it is an affair, & completly makes Garcia question his wife's loyalty, thus distacting him from his investigation, when Garcia learns the truth, he goes after Gere with everything he has got, although the ending is somewhat out there, this is a good police thriller that is at times terrifying to think about, the possibilities of police officers leading this kind of life is scary & Gere is very convincing as the twisted cop, as is Garcia as the determined investigator who vows to bring Gere down. If you like good police drama, this is highly recommended!!

Internal Affairs brings to the screen the story of an I.A. agent's efforts at curbing corruption at a police precinct. What he encounters though, might be more than he bargained for...
Andy Garcia, Richard Gere, William Baldwin, and the rest of the cast, have truly outdone themselves with their performances, which are exceptional to say the least! All the actors, without exceptions, give it their 100% and it really shows (Richard Gere really steals the show as the villain!), allowing for a highly entertaining movie.
The setting, the plot, the dialogues, and the music are all very good.
In short, though not a masterpiece it is definitely a movie worth watching, as it will surely provide for an evening's entertainment.

This is a great movie with an outstanding cast! Richard Gere is a man you love to hate. Andy Garcia and Nancy Travis are incredible in this film and make you feel every emotion that they experience. I definitely recommend this edge of your seat, yell at your tv movie to everyone that loves the classics.

This crime story needs one to suspend belief and that's not hard given the quality of acting and general shooting of the film. Richard Gere fits the bad cop womanizer role perfectly as does Andy Garcia the obsessive good cop. The story is far fetched - a bright, yet insane junior officer of the LAPD manipulates the force for his own gain, and gets away with it untill a new Internal Affairs cop comes after him. Yet, the story has some truth to it and it's thread which is worked into the script well enough to make one sit back and be excited about the outcome. Good direction and good supporting roles. DVD reproduction is also good.

I got ripped off by rarewaves.com. I never ordered Internal Affairs Region 2 DVD's. This company should be removed from Amazon.com immediately. The product that they sell, Region 2 DVD's from London, England do not work in Canada or the United States. The customer service I received from them is horrible.

I saw this movie years ago, but decided to buy it. I must say Richard Gere did an outstanding job playing a villan. Again, Mr. Gere has demonstrated that he is versatile, and can play a varirty of roles. Great performances by Andy Garcia and Steven Baldwin as well.