Narc

I'll say this for writer-director Joe Carnahan: He knows how to cut to the chase. Narc, which stars Jason Patric and Ray Liotta as a pair of Detroit cops trying to hold on to their badges, opens with Patric doing a Run Lola Run number through one of Motor City's less elegant neighborhoods, and Carnahan both keeps it real and keeps it real fast ' "Cops" on speed. What follows is a standard-issue genre flick involving (what else?) police corruption, but Carnahan's a real scene-maker, and the acting throughout is topnotch, especially by the two leads, who must have watched The French Connection a few times.