At first I thought that this movie was a little slow, but the problem was that the recording was quite bad, so it pulled the quality of this movie down. It is quite slow in parts and is very different from the namesake Prison on Fire. Where as Prison on Fire is an action film, City on Fire is a thriller. The dark setting, the jazz background music, gives the feel of New Orleans, and the movie come across as Film Noir.
An undercover cop is killed in a jewel heist and another deep undercover cop is asked to infiltrate the gang and help the police stop them. The cop, unfortunately, already betrayed somebody that he was watching. He had built a deep relationship with this person, but he had to betray him because it was his job. As such he has decided against continuing as a police officer. Unfortunately his supervisor does not want him to resign yet and convinces him to go on one more assignment.
This movie is a cops and robbers movie with a twist. With the robbers it is one last job and that is it, but the big job always fails and ends up dead. In this film, the robbers know that there is never going to be any last job, they are going to be doing it until they die. Instead it is the police officer who goes on that last job.
As usual the police officer is struggling with his relationships. Instead of him wanting to do his job, he would rather leave his job and spend time with the woman that he loves. He continues chasing her during the movie but if his job does not interrupt their relationship, his family does. He is also under pressure from the other police departments who either do not realise or do not care that he is an undercover cop. Rather they think that he is corrupt and want to deal with him appropriately.
Though he tries to pull out of the scene and settle down, he keeps on being dragged back in. This is his fatal flaw, the fact that he lives a double life, a life that is dangerous if others discover this double feature. If the criminals discover that he is a cop then he is likely to be killed.
There are a number of interesting ideas in the movie. One is that the criminal knows that he will always be a criminal. The more money he gets the more he will spend and the sooner he will need to commit another crime. One criminal claims that he does not hate cops because it is their job to go after people like him. As such he will not hate the police officer for his job, but rather treat him as another working man. He earns his living by robbing jewelry stores while the police officer earns his living by arresting criminals.
City on Fire is a dark, tragic movie that looks at the pain of the life of an undercover cop. Here the life is not glorified, but rather dirt real. It is a style that I wish to be influenced by because of the stark reality that the film portrays. A stark reality that people hide behind the illusion of television, and a reality that is broken open in movies like the Truman Show and Edward Scissorhands.
An undercover cop is killed in a jewel heist and another deep undercover cop is asked to infiltrate the gang and help the police stop them. The cop, unfortunately, already betrayed somebody that he was watching. He had built a deep relationship with this person, but he had to betray him because it was his job. As such he has decided against continuing as a police officer. Unfortunately his supervisor does not want him to resign yet and convinces him to go on one more assignment.
This movie is a cops and robbers movie with a twist. With the robbers it is one last job and that is it, but the big job always fails and ends up dead. In this film, the robbers know that there is never going to be any last job, they are going to be doing it until they die. Instead it is the police officer who goes on that last job.
As usual the police officer is struggling with his relationships. Instead of him wanting to do his job, he would rather leave his job and spend time with the woman that he loves. He continues chasing her during the movie but if his job does not interrupt their relationship, his family does. He is also under pressure from the other police departments who either do not realise or do not care that he is an undercover cop. Rather they think that he is corrupt and want to deal with him appropriately.
Though he tries to pull out of the scene and settle down, he keeps on being dragged back in. This is his fatal flaw, the fact that he lives a double life, a life that is dangerous if others discover this double feature. If the criminals discover that he is a cop then he is likely to be killed.
There are a number of interesting ideas in the movie. One is that the criminal knows that he will always be a criminal. The more money he gets the more he will spend and the sooner he will need to commit another crime. One criminal claims that he does not hate cops because it is their job to go after people like him. As such he will not hate the police officer for his job, but rather treat him as another working man. He earns his living by robbing jewelry stores while the police officer earns his living by arresting criminals.
City on Fire is a dark, tragic movie that looks at the pain of the life of an undercover cop. Here the life is not glorified, but rather dirt real. It is a style that I wish to be influenced by because of the stark reality that the film portrays. A stark reality that people hide behind the illusion of television, and a reality that is broken open in movies like the Truman Show and Edward Scissorhands.