
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 28, 1990                   TAG: 9004280349
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`Q&A' CARRIES ATMOSPHERE TO AN EXTREME

Deep inside "Q&A" there's an intriguing urban police mystery. But it's hard to find because writer/director Sidney Lumet has buried it under so many layers of atmosphere and what passes for "gritty realism."

In the opening scene, a tough detective, Lt. Mike Brennan (Nick Nolte) murders a man in cold blood. He claims that the victim, a petty crook, had a weapon. An inexperienced assistant district attorney, Al Reilly (Timothy Hutton), is assigned to collect the facts - to do the "Q&A" - and present the evidence to a grand jury. Reilly's politically ambitious boss Kevin Quinn (Patrick O'Neal) is certain Brennan will be exonerated out of hand.

But Reilly learns that the matter isn't as simple as it first looks, and he is reluctantly drawn into a deeper investigation. It seems that a well-connected gangster, Bobby Texador (Armand Assante) is involved, and Texador is living with Reilly's old flame, Nancy Bosch (Jenny Lumet).

If those complications weren't enough, Reilly isn't sure he can trust his own investigators. Chapman (Charles Dutton) is an old pal of Brennan's, and Valentin (Luis Guzman) may be on the take. The plot becomes madly confusing toward the middle when more gangsters, homosexual prostitutes, stool pigeons, Nancy's mom and Cuban/Jewish bodyguards enter the picture.

All of that might have been thoroughly captivating material, but in this "realistic" script, the language is unnecessarily foul and degrading racial epithets of every stripe are shoveled up with the same excess. Yes, there is a large degree of truth to the blatant racism that the film expresses, but "Q&A" wallows in it. And the characters spend a lot of time screaming at each other, giving the entire production an overly ripe, unsavory feel.

Lumet has shown that he can take this kind of material and do wonders with it - "Dog Day Afternoon," "The Verdict," "Serpico" - or he can fall on his face - "Family Business," "The Morning After." "Q&A" is not one of his better efforts. The New York locations are evocative, some of the action scenes really are gripping and Hutton is fairly restrained, considering. But Nolte cuts loose early and never quite recovers, and Assante looks exactly like Robert DeNiro in "Angel Heart." You keep waiting for his eyes to glow, or something.

Finally, at two hours plus, "Q&A" is just too long. `Q&A' A Tri-Star release playing at the Salem Valley 8 (389-0444). Rated R for vile language, violence, sexual material. Two hours and 12 minutes long.

by CNB