He plays Freddy Heflin, a sheriff of a New Jersey town where a bunch of 1970s New York City cops live. In the 70s, NYC was known to be crime-ridden and the cops wanted their families to live in a better place, hence this offshoot in New Jersey.
Although Freddy keeps law and order when he can over the minor crimes that take place in suburbia, the cops that live there are known to be corrupt and racists. This issue comes more to light one night when a young cop, Superboy (Michael Rapaport), commits suicide after killing two black men during a traffic altercation.
Superboy's uncle Ray Donlan (Harvey Keitel) and other cops plant evidence to make it appear Superboy was justified in the killing, which others are finding hard to believe. Freddy also has suspicions, and the film's basic storyline involves him trying to prove this, and also butting heads with Donlan.
On the other side of the thin blue line is Moe Tilden (Robert De Niro), a New York Internal Affairs officer who asks Freddy to help him find evidence about the Superboy incident. But Freddy wants to see the good in people, and believes he can convince Donlan to do the right thing.
The casting was really good but at times the story felt like a Law and Order episode. An interview with the newish writer/director said he wrote this as a sort of western that takes place in an urban setting--if you think of the cops fleeing the lawlessness of NYC to start a fresh life in NJ. The cops are then a gang who come into town and the local lawman feels useless. This is a pretty apt description.
The main character though, like many westerns, is ultra black and white but I am not sure it fits for a modern day film (even if it does take place in the 70s). While in the Old West things were not always black and white, most early film westerns made sure we knew who was the good guy and who was the bad. Nowadays we know characters to be gray in real life as well as in film and I would have liked Freddy to have more of a gray character than this portrayal. All the things that formed who he is, is based on heroic things he's done. While we would all love everyone to defend us like this, he behaves like this due to regrets of not doing more, and not due to a mistake or due to a wrong.
Near the end of the film, Donlan makes a speech accusing Freddy of not being mature enough to do his job, and Freddy really does act like the boy Donlan accuses him of being, he is meek and hangs his head. In this scene, I almost side with Donlan over Freddy, as Freddy is just too idealistic, always thinking to give Donlan a chance he doesn't deserve. This is fitting for his character but not for a real life scenario. The last shootout scene is also reminiscent of a movie western, where the hero is shot but doesn't fall immediately to all the bad guys that are attacking him, becoming almost a one man show.
The acting by the NY actors is solid, which included Ray Liotta, Annabella Sciorra, Robert Patrick, Peter Berg, Janeane Garafalo, and Cathy Moriarty. The script is mostly good. It reminded me in tone at times of Silverado or High Noon. Those heroes had more character traits that made their fight more complex.
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