Ambition is something to respect in an artist, but Charles Burnett's police-corruption drama The Glass Shield is such a maladroit piece of filmmaking that its weighty themes and sclerotic tangle of a plot end up making it a trial to sit through.
The Glass Shield
In a world filled with violence... his only weapon is the truth!
1994 · 1h 50m · PG-13
Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Directed by
Charles Burnett
Overview
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.
Director and cast
- Charles Burnett Director
- Michael Boatman as Dep. J.J. Johnson
- Lori Petty as Dep. Deborah Fields
- Ice Cube as Theodore 'Teddy' Woods
- Erich Anderson as D.A. Ira Kern
- Bernie Casey as James Locket
- Richard Anderson as Watch Cmmdr. Clarence Massey
- Elliott Gould as Greenspan
- Victoria Dillard as Barbara Simms
- Michael Ironside as Det. Gene Baker
- Natalija Nogulich as Judge Helen Lewis
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
A powerful moral drama that tries to deal with the racism at the root of many problems in contempo American society.
It's a rigorous, angry piece of work, but it misses out on the psychological depths that have made Burnett's previous films among the glories of recent American independent moviemaking.
An implausible, wearisome clunker trying to ring true but making only dull thuds.
Burnett's screenplay has a tendency to be a little too preachy, especially during the unsatisfying final scene. There's a fine line between getting the message across through subtlety and becoming didactic...
More films
Underground (2007)
Action · Not Rated
In the UK suburbs, an underground tournament is set to challenge twelve fighters from different backgrounds to compete for the price of £500,000. They have been handpicked for a no-holds barred competition that will push each fighter to their limit. Each fighter has their own reason for competing, and each will give everything they've ...
- Runtime
- 1h 35m
- Director
- Chee Keong Cheung
- Cast
- Mark Strange, Nathan Lewis, Joey Ansah
Bodyguard: A New Beginning (2008)
Action · Drama · Thriller · R
Leung is the bodyguard of a Chinese Triad boss, Wong, to whom his loyalty is unrivaled. Living in Hong Kong, Wong requests that his bodyguard travel to the UK to protect a young British woman, whose true identity is known only by Wong himself. Even Wong's son, Yuen, is kept in the dark, which leads to a betrayal that threatens to destr...
- Runtime
- 1h 35m
- Director
- Chee Keong Cheung
- Cast
- Vincent Sze Cho-Lam, Richard Ng Yiu-Hon, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa











Comments
Talk about the film with other members