Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Justina The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

lozmillar I found this gripping from start to finish, an amazing insight into outrageous police corruption, I can't recommend enough, well worth a watch.

Woodyanders File this one under amazing, but true: Coming across like the most extremely lurid and outrageous kind of crime fiction, this sordidly fascinating documentary relates the extraordinary tale of fearless, amoral, and unrepentant cop Michael Dowd, who organized a band of fellow dirty cops who ran happily amok in the downtrodden 7th precinct located in Brooklyn in the bad ol' days of the 1980's at the height of dismal poverty and the toxic crack epidemic. Director Tiller Russell's unflinching pull-no-punches approach to the seamy subject matter vividly captures the greed, danger, and lawlessness of the period as Dowd and his loyal, yet reluctant partner Ken Eurell live the high life on their ill-gotten gains after forming an unholy allegiance with ruthless, but magnetic drug kingpin Adam Diaz. Eventually Eurell ratted Dowd out in order to avoid doing any jail time, but in a true travesty of justice Dowd wound up serving a mere twelve year sentence in prison. It's the smugness that Dowd, Eurell, Diaz, and fellow crooked police officers Chickie and Walter Yurkiv display about their heinous misdeeds which in turn gives this documentary an extra devastating impact: Obviously more concerned about making a bundle of cash through any means necessary and strictly looking out for their own slimy hides (that old code about cops watching out for each other's backs apparently only goes so far after things take a turn for the worse), these guys are truly nasty pieces of rotten work. Surprisingly, this documentary proves to be wickedly funny in spots, especially when Down starts driving around in a flashy Corvette that he clearly could never afford on an honest cop's pay and the end with Eurell claiming he betrayed Dowd in order to prevent a woman from being kidnapped. A total powerhouse.

jake_fantom If you enjoy watching unrepentant psychopathic "cops" have a giggle over the horrendous crimes they committed while working as uniformed NYC police officers, this documentary will be right up your alley. The main subject of the film, Michael Dowd, has a blast recounting his sordid adventures for the camera, and the interviewer never gets in the way of the fun by asking a probing question. The great documentarians manage to either confront their subjects, or coax them into revealing themselves. The director of this lame excuse for a film does neither. He just lets the idiots talk about their brilliant exploits — ripping off robbery victims and drug dealers alike, and eventually hiring out to drug kingpins to protect their territories. Ultimately, Dowd actually becomes a drug dealer and kidnapper, turning his victims over to the drug cartels. As superficial as it is, I have to say that this documentary is also watchable, and delivers a couple of unintentional insights: the first is that virtually all the cops interviewed in this film seem to abide by the same code as criminals do: never rat on a fellow cop. The other is the single bit of sorrow that Dowd evinces late in the film: it's over the fact that his longtime partner (a tattooed goofball with the brains of a bivalve) eventually "rolled over" on him and wore a wire for the internal affairs investigators who put Dowd away for 12 years. Dowd's tears at the recollection of this betrayal are hysterically funny, and worth the pain and suffering of sitting through this badly paced, badly shot, badly cut film.

Red-Barracuda Precinct Seven Five refers to the 75th precinct located in Brooklyn New York which was the location of extraordinary police corruption back in the 1980's. In this decade the streets of New York really were crime addled and the 75th precinct had a reputation as one of the very worst areas of this dangerous city. Cops from the NYPD felt it necessary to pragmatically back each other up in order to survive life on the front line of serious crime; this led to them turning a blind eye to certain practises. This film looks at the extreme end result of this culture. The New York streets at this time were awash with crack cocaine and well organised gangs protected their interests with violence. Entering into this maelstrom was rookie cop Ken Eurell, who was given a partner Michael Dowd, who was an experienced police officer with a reputation for shady practices. At first Eurell was extremely reticent about this partnership but before long he was joining Dowd in a downward spiral of corruption which began with taking bribes, moving on to actual thieving, then protecting the interests of a big league drug dealer, leading onto to dealing themselves and even winding up with the facilitation of murder. It's an incredible story of cops bowing to temptation in a pretty bad way and is an alarming example of the police acting like gangsters.Starting with footage of Dowd answering questions at a commission, the story intermittently returns to this as he gives very candid answers while we go back to the start of the story and work our way forward through the 80's and gradually learn about the increasing levels of corruption this group of cops let themselves become party to. It's a fascinating tale, very well told; including some disturbing crime photographs. The level of danger on the streets of Brooklyn really comes through in this, with a particularly incredible segment where the cops are actually chased by the criminals! Dowd himself is obviously an interesting character for the very fact that he got away with such significant levels of corruption for such a long while. His eventual downfall did ultimately lead the NYPD to significantly improve its internal affairs to more pro-actively try to prevent such wrong-doing; whether or not it has been successful in this I really have no idea. But whatever the case, this is a very good and eye opening documentary about a bad chapter in American law enforcement.