The Glass Shield (1995)
J.J. is a rookie in the Sheriff's Department and the first black officer at that station. Racial tensions run high in the department as some of J.J.'s fellow officers resent his presence. His only real friend is the other new trooper, the first female officer to work there, who also suffers similar discrimination in the otherwise all-white male work environment. When J.J. becomes increasingly aware of police corruption during the murder trial of Teddy Woods, whom he helped to arrest, he faces difficult decisions and puts himself into grave personal danger in the service of justice.
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How sad is this?
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
How your comment makes the top response for this film proves not only how naive you are, but how culturally bankrupt and immoral this nation is. The fact is, there are pockets of Russia and China here in the US not on community levels, but in the government as well. You have never heard of SERPICO or Rodney King obviously, it is no surprising Americans are completely out of touch. They elect a man like Bush, who invades a hornets nest, indebted your children and grandchildren, and runs a police state media called Fox network. The US government installed Pinochet in Peru, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, then orchestrate his execution. You are saying there is no such thing as the mafia or corrupt police and racism is not real. This film shows and tests the police as humans. Not everyone likes being pushed around by the police and not everyone is as passive and out of touch as you, thank God, if he exists.
I just saw _The Glass Shield_ for the first time since it was released theatrically. I'm very glad to say it hasn't gone stale with time. Despite the violent overtones, the film is a subtle and compelling parable on race, power, and sex in the US. It won't satisfy anyone with the attention span of a fruit-fly or a fetish for blood and guts, but it gets under your skin (so to speak) if you pay it the slightest bit of attention.As a side note this is one of the very few feature films chosen by the Whitney Museum of American Art for its biennial surveys of contemporary art (there was another film that year as well, _The Hours and Times_, also excellent).
The movie sends a good message. As clichéd as it sounds: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. As other viewers have noted, this movie is low budget and not overtly action packed. But it does showcase very well what can happen when trying to fit in: Loosing sight of what is right and wrong, then trying to do what is right and getting penalized for it from different directions. Many movies do an awesome job in telling a tale. This is one of them. The message of being drunk with power and corruption among peers is something that is not only seen in the law enforcement institutions, but in the corporate and higher education areas as well. It just appears that corruption is more harmful in law enforcement because there is the higher probability that people may become physically and psychologically damaged (on the deepest level) as a result of corrupt people misusing their guns, badges, and utmost authority). The movie is more likely to hit home for someone who is female and/or a minority who has had some in-depth exposure to law enforcement. While many police officers are, for the most part, decent and on the level, I would say that EVERY law enforcement agency has some level of corruption occurring. The corruption can be a lone officer or two belittling citizens unjustifiably (and getting away with it), or a group of them who systematically abuse power. Perhaps a film like this would be worth mandatory viewing for new police recruits. There is something in it for everyone. Not only is there the lesson of how wrong and nasty discrimination is (especially in groups), but there is also the lesson of your own well meaning, however wrong actions, coming back to haunt you. And finally there is the lesson of how harassment, alienation and adversity are often used as cruel weapons in attempts get others to conform to wrongdoing.
Show was very interesting regarding newcomer cops, especially blacks and females. I really hope this no longer goes on in precincts but unfortunately, it probably happens more often than we'd like to think. Michael Boatman played a very dramatic believable officer - definitely worth watching!