Unintelligible rendition of the John Gregory Dunne novel: unintelligible in such small matters as what's being said at any particular moment, as well as in the larger scheme of things. Robert Duvall and Robert De Niro, both acting on automatic pilot, portray Irish-American brothers, the former a cop and the latter a priest, but the Black Dahlia-type murder case that the one is working on takes a backseat to the ferocious anti-Catholic axe-grinding, never builds any momentum, much less any suspense. The connection between the two elements -- crime and the Catholic church -- doesn't come clear until so far down the line that, when it does come clear, it seems a remarkable coincidence rather than one element leading logically and inevitably to the other. Divergent streaks of sentimentality and scabrousness do nothing to alleviate the incoherence. Good collection of 1940s cars, however. With Charles Durning, Ed Flanders, and Kenneth McMillan; directed by Ulu Grosbard. (1981) — Duncan Shepherd
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