Following Serpico (1973) and Prince of the City (1981), veteran urban crime film director Sidney Lumet completed a thematic trilogy about New York City police corruption with this noir drama. When New York City cop Mike Brennan (Nick Nolte) shoots an unarmed Hispanic drug dealer in cold blood, he quickly plants a gun on his victim and manufactures some eyewitness testimony. D.A. Kevin Quinn (Patrick O'Neal) calls in his assistant district attorney, Al Reilly (Timothy Hutton), to conduct a perfunctory investigation of the incident, but Brennan's obvious guilt during a question and answer session makes Reilly dig deeper. The crusading lawyer is soon uncovering a web of corruption that reaches from Brennan into Quinn's office. At the same time, Reilly learns that his ex-girlfriend Nancy Bosch (Jenny Lumet, the director's daughter), is now dating his chief witness, Puerto Rican drug dealer Bobby Texador (Armand Assante). Q&A (1990) was based on the novel by Edwin Torres, a New York State Supreme Court judge whose two other novels were later adapted into the film Carlito's Way (1993). Lumet would again return to the subject of New York's corrupt criminal justice system with Night Falls on Manhattan (1997). gerous, the answers can be deadly.


In New York, Tony Vasquez, a habitual Puerto Rican offender, linked to the gangs' world of the city, is killed in front of a discoclub by Lt. Mike Brennan after being called by a police confidant, Roger Montalvo. The Lieutenant deposits a gun, used in a prior murder, near the corpse of the criminal, and records the names of some of the present to support his self-defense. The Chief of Police Kevin Quinn, instructs the Deputy Attorney Aloysius, Al, Francis Reilly to the investigation, a young lawyer with a past as a police officer, and son of a well-known agent who died in service. He then collects the deposition of the lieutenant, who claims to have been in that place to stop Tony, following a tip from an informant and that he had been forced to make use of a firearm as threatened by the gangster.

The case seems simple but Leo Bloomenfeld, a senior DA official, friend and mentor of Al, warns him about some inconsistencies in the report and advises him to not close the investigation but to look into Tony's past, and for this purpose he summons the persons present at the fact to be questioned: Larry Pesch, an Italian thug linked to the Mafia, who inexplicably was in the club usually attended only by Puerto Ricans; Roberto; and Bobby Tex, aka Texador, a drug dealer, and his girlfriend Nancy Bosch.

Al, along with detectives Sam Chapman and Luis Valentin, has doubts about the dynamics of the event. He, knowing the environment of the Puerto Rican underworld, provokes Bobby Tex, component, along with Tony, of an old gang, disbanded twenty years earlier, which reacts sustaining that Brennan has deliberately killed the thug pulling him into a trap, but without explaining why.

The revelations of the smuggler leads the young prosecutor to investigate Brennan, in spite of Quinn's warnings, who would like to close quickly the case, and Chapman's reluctance. Chapman is one of Mike's old comrade, who however, dutifully, is not exempt from supervise the lieutenant. The questioning also unearths a past emotional bond between Al and Nancy. She ended their relationship years ago after interpreting Al reaction of surprise as racist when she introduced him to her father, a black man. Al is now, two years since their last meeting, distraught seeing Nancy in the company of Bobby Tex. Al tries to rekindle their past romance, but she rejects him. With Bobby, she feels loved, protected and accepted.

Investigations reveal a link between Quinn and Brennan, never explained, and the latter goes on the trail of Montalvo, the only witness able to disassemble his thesis of self-defense. In his fear Brennan cames to threaten the detective Valentin and to offer money to his friend Chapman. Meanwhile, Bobby Tex is "invited" by the Mafia to step aside, as the support of the lieutenant is still useful for them. Then Bobby, in turn, begins looking for Montalvo, to have a weapon to use against Brennan, and simultaneously begins to close his business to retire to private life with Nancy .

Bobby gets to find Montalvo before Brennan, and together they leave for Puerto Rico, where the smuggler owns a mansion and a yacht. Here he is joined by Al, called secretly, to give him an important information about the case. Al, after informing Leo, goes to the island, where he's revealed the past of Quinn, indirectly tied, in youth, to the Bobby's gang, and the author of a murder. But why Brennan is killing, one after the other, the members of the old gang? It is because Quinn has high political ambitions, and he is using the lieutenant, bound to him to have been covered in an old case of abuse of authority. Now he intends to cut its ties with a past that might compromise him.

Even the Mafia intends to close accounts with both Bobby and Brennan, whose position is becoming every day more embarrassing. Then, before eliminating the uncomfortable cop, the Mafia tries to kill the now former smuggler Bobby, however unsuccessfully. In the meantime the Lieutenant is able to find the lover of Montalvo, the trans José Malpica, and kills him after listening to a message on an answering machine that tells where he is located. Brennan goes to Puerto Rico and, despite Al tries to warn Bobby thus saving the life of Nancy, he kills Montalvo and then, after having sliced the boat fuel pipe, he waits for the arrival of Bobby causing the explosion of the boat.

Al produces the arrest warrant for Brennan but fails to catch him at the airport and, returned to the DA's office, finds the lieutenant there. Brennan, out of control, attacks him and shots to Chapman who tries to stop him, then he is knocked down by a fellow known for never having drawn off his pistol in twenty years of service.

The young deputy prosecutor, with his swollen face, is summoned by Quinn who informs him that he is aware of his activities, but that he does not fear legal consequences for himself. Unfortunately this is unexpectedly true, because Leo confirms that, in order to prevent embarrassment to the Department of Justice, everything will be hushed up. There's no way for Al's threats to reveal the facts to the press neither, as the journalists too, linked to Leo, will not publish the news. Leo adds also to be able to raise embarrassing details about the conduct of his deceased father that, if revealed, would remove the service pension to Al's mother. Then, adding wryly that, if the case, a fire could break out in the police's archives to destroy all records he collected.

Al, humiliated, defeated and betrayed by the man who he has always believed an honest administrator of justice, smashes the desk in his office and goes out in anger, disdained by a system that he had sworn to enforce. At last he tries to find Nancy, saved from his phone call, and now fled on an island near Puerto Rico. He knows that she does not love him but he wants to stay close to her, with the hope that one day everything will return as before.

Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "It is fascinating the way this movie works so well as a police thriller on one level, while on other levels it probes feelings we may keep secret even from ourselves".[3] In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, "Great little scenes overshadow bigger, more important ones. Characters come and go at speed. Watching the movie is an entertaining ride, but when it is over it is difficult to remember where, exactly, one has been".[4]

Rolling Stone magazine's Peter Travers wrote, "Lumet tries to cram too much in ... But he's onto something, and you can sense his excitement. This is Lumet's boldest film in years -- a combustible drama with a vivid, shocking immediacy. The director is back at the top of his game".[5]

In his review for the Washington Post, Hal Hinson praised Nick Nolte's performance: "This actor doesn't flinch in the least from his character's unsavoriness; instead he seems to glory in his crumpled suits and unwashed hair, as if they were a kind of spiritual corollary. Nolte gives Brennan a kind of monumental brutishness -- he makes him seem utterly indomitable".[6]

USA Today gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Overkill ultimately wears Q & A down, despite two bravura performances and some Hutton understatement that's adequate to the task. So, too, does unrelenting sordidness, a deadly love angle and a score (Ruben Blades) almost as awful as Cy Coleman's sabotage of Lumet's Family Business".[7]

In his review for the Globe and Mail Rick Groen praised Armand Assante's performance: "in a role that could easily descend into cliche - the crook with a moral code - Assante does his best work to date, always keeping on the safe side of the stereotype".[8] Newsweek magazine's David Ansen wrote, "Nolte, with a big paunch and a walrus mustache, is a truly dangerous presence here; he uses his threatening body and a high, strained voice to stunning, scary effect. Like the movie, Nolte really gets in your face and, for a long time afterwards, sticks in you craw".[9]

Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A-" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Q & A is a major film by one of our finest mainstream directors. As both a portrait of modern-day corruption and an act of sheer storytelling bravura, it is not to be missed"

Release Date: April 27, 1990 from TriStar


Boxoffice: $11,207,891 2014: $21,091,000