It shows how doing the good thing may not be the right thing.

This guy had a good career as a cop, he had loyal friends, and he hadn't done much illegal stuff (that he admitted to), and he could always decline to do more. He had a good family life and was social with the other families.

He gave that all up to inform on criminals and other cops who weren't his partners. He was successful, but it cost him his friends, and his family struggled with needing 24/7 protection and being away from their home and losing all their friends. He could only visit his own wife and children on weekends as he attended the trials that spanned years, and he couldn't visit his other relatives.

All that struggle and suffering, because he did the right thing. But it wasn't worth it. It's not worth it. Not at all. And in the end, it's just one area, or one city, or one area of a city he helped to clean up. It isn't much of a difference. When he could have not done that and just continued to live his good life.

Plus there was all the stress of being undercover, risking being killed for years, or his family harmed.

And we see the pressure from the higher ups in law enforcement and corruption investigators in making Danny become worse as a person in giving up his partners. We see Danny, pressured and used but also trying to do the right thing, see his morals degrade. He becomes kind of dehumanized by his own actions, becoming less of a good person, as his value of loyalty deteriorates.

Contradictorily, in trying to do the right thing, he becomes worse as a person.

It's not really about the plot of a conspiracy, and it's not entirely about Danny trying to uncover corruption, it's more about Danny's personal journey throughout all of this and the effects on him.

We see a character so consumed with increasing guilt throughout the film, that it makes him a bit mad.

His ambivalnce over his actions, and not knowing exactly what kind of character he is as he flip flops about a bit later on, jeopardizes some of the criminal cases he helped set up.

But we also find out Danny was a lot more of a criminal than we thought. Not serious crimes, but a lot of smaller ones than the few he initially admitted to. We also find out he did things like cheat on his wife.

It's an interesting character study of a film, for sure.

I do like the ambiguity of what you think of the main character. Personally i think he's kind of a villain or anti-hero for what he put his family through and what he did to his friends.

It all shows how doing the good thing may not be the right thing.

It hurts to watch... literally. Every time i catch it it looks like I'm watching a copy of an old VHS tape. If anything was in need of remastering.... well, Prince of the City isn't going to be remastered because I don't even think it has a cult following.

And that is a crying shame, because it is a really good movie that you can currently only find bad copies of on Amazon.

The script is.... meh. It really is. You have seen the corrupt narcotics pitch many times before. That's not the draw. This was riding on Serpico's heels.

What is the draw is the directing. It is severely understated, severely actor focused, and entirely atmospheric. It is really minimalist directing done right and... it works.

The cast are a bunch of B-Listers at best, but they are B-listers that brought their A-Game and out classed most of the names you see on the marquees. So it's sort of like watching the underdogs win. They really nailed it, and their performances meshed perfectly with the direction.

It's not going to stand out for reasons of a rehashed plot... but it's going to have an effect on you. You will walk away thinking, "that was done well. They gave great performances, why haven't I heard of this?"