Nick Nolte

Timothy Hutton

Armand Assante

Patrick O'Neal

Lee Richardson

Luis Guzmán

Charles S. Dutton

Jenny Lumet

Paul Calderon

International Chrysis

Dominic Chianese

Leonardo Cimino

Fyvush Finkel

Gustavo Brens

Martin E. Brens

Maurice Schell

Thomas Mikal Ford

John Capodice

Frederick Rolf

Hal Lehrman

Gloria Irizarry

Brian Neill

Susan Mitchell

Drew Eliot

Frank Raiter

Harry Madsen

Jerry Ciauri

George Kodisch

Burtt Harris

Michael A. Joseph

Cynthia O'Neal

Victor Colicchio

Anibal O. Lleras

José Rafael Arango

David Dill

Alex Ruiz

Richard Solchik

Edward Rogers III

Junior Perez

Javier Ríos

June Stein

Rod Rodriguez

Sonny Vito

Olga Merediz

Peter Gumeny

Edward Rowan

Danny Darrow

José Collazo

José Alvarez

G.W. Bailey

Janis Corsair

David Hummel

Vincent Pastore

Sidney Lumet

Edwin Torres

Gary J. Brink

Beth Kuhn

Philip Rosenberg

Neil Spisak

Ann Roth

Joe Cranzano

Mark Rathaus

Peter Odabashian

Richard P. Cirincione

Rubén Blades

Arnon Milchan

Mike Wise

Andrzej Bartkowiak

Joy Todd

Lilith Jacobs

Patrick Wachsberger

Miguel Arteta

Action

Thriller

Crime

Q & A

Regency Enterprises

Odyssey Distributors

United States of America

Q & A is the third entry in Sidney Lumet’s loose trilogy about NYPD corruption, and by far the most pessimistic. While Al Pacino and Treat Williams are given an admittedly tough choice in Serpico and Prince of the City, here Timothy Hutton comes to learn that one man can’t make a difference after all. 

The ending is as frustrating to the viewers as it is to he hero, because we find out that the character’s hands were tied all along; instead of going over people’s heads and behind their backs, Al Reilly (Hutton) might as well have played ball from the get-go, which would have at least had the consolation that a low fewer people would have died in the process.

In Serpico and Prince of the City, Lumet addressed corruption as a problem that one had to have the balls to attack head-on; in Q & A he seems to have given up, as if saying: "this is the way things are and there is nothing anyone can do about it" — and you know what they say about being part of the problem if you’re not part of the solution.

The film is not without its pleasures, though; not surprising considering the people involved. Nick Nolte is the original Bad Lieutenant (he has two great back-to-back scenes in which he tells a scatological anecdote to the same people he is about to relate his official account of an incident wherein he shot a Puertorrican kid to death. In both instances he has the audience — his and the movie’s — eating out of the palm of his hand; needless to say, the shooting is ruled as self-defense), while Armand Assante is a precursor to Pacino’s Carlo Brigante (both Q & A and Carlito's Way are based on novels by former New York State Supreme Court Justice and author of Puerto Rican descent Edwin Torres).

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Q & A (1990) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p]