'The Son of No One' review

Channing Tatum and Al Pacino (Credit: Anchor Bay)

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["The Son of No One" premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The following is an excerpt from Metromix's coverage of the festival.]

"The Son of No One" was introduced by a festival programmer as having "one of the strongest casts ever seen at Sundance." That already questionable assertion becomes even less credible given the quality of work on display in the film.

Channing Tatum reunites with "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" writer-director Dito Montiel to play a 30-year-old rookie cop in Queens, whose troubled history catches up with him in unexpected ways. When Tatum's character was just a kid (Jake Cherry), he killed two people out of self defense, but the crimes were covered up. Now the past comes back to haunt him, as well as his wife (Katie Holmes), childhood friend (Tracy Morgan) and new boss (Ray Liotta). Also key to the mystery: the outgoing police chief (Al Pacino), who has personal ties to Tatum's character, and a local newspaper reporter (Juliette Binoche).

For some reason the present day action unfolds in 2002, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and "Guiliani Time" New York. And that's the stronger part of the film. The flashbacks to Tatum's late '80s childhood are embarrassingly overwrought—including some of the worst acting of Pacino's career.

Liotta is the only cast member who escapes with most of his dignity intact, although considering the material, the actors are hardly to blame. A lazy pile-up of police corruption and rough childhood clichés, "The Son of No One" feels completely warmed over, until a shockingly awful climax ends the film on a particularly sour note.

Follow Metromix's Geoff Berkshire on Twitter: @geoffberkshire

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