Ed Norton is Ray Tierney, a good cop whose scar on his left cheek suggests deeper damage caused by a shooting two years ago that left him working the missing-persons beat. The chief of Manhattan detectives, who happens to be Ray’s pop, Francis Tierney Sr. (Jon Voight), cajoles and guilts his boy into coming out of semi-retirement to solve the case of four cops gunned down in a drug dealer’s Washington Heights apartment—cops who happened to have been under the command of Ray’s brother, Francis Jr. (Noah Emmerich), and Ray’s brother-in-law, Jimmy Egan (Colin Farrell). Only it so happens that the four cops shot to pieces that cold December night—as protocol dictates, the film takes place during Christmas and New Year’s—were dirty badges collecting drug money for Jimmy, who was working both sides of the alley to make ends meet. Which is not a spoiler; far from it. Fact is, by the end of the film’s first 10 minutes, the audience knows precisely who’s who and who’s up to what and how this is gonna end. Which leaves 120 more minutes to fill—or three weeks, whichever comes first. How ironic that a movie filled with police officers should end up feeling like a hostage situation.