It’s a movie that appeared in 1981—making it, for those born in 2000, an oldie.
And it wasn’t a blockbuster, being yanked out of theaters almost as soon as it arrived.
Yet Prince of the City remains that rarity—a movie about big-city police that:
- Tells a dramatic (and true) story; and
- Offers serious truths about how police and prosecutors really operate.
It’s based on the real-life case of NYPD Detective Robert Leuci (“Danny Ciello” in the film).
Robert Leuci (“Danny Ciello” in “Prince of the City”)
A member of the elite Special Investigating Unit (SIU) Ciello (played by Treat Williams) volunteers to work undercover against rampant corruption among narcotics agents, attorneys and bail bondsmen.
His motive appears simple: To redeem himself and the NYPD from the corruption he sees everywhere: “These people we take from own us.”
His only condition: “I will never betray cops who’ve been my partners.”
And Assistant US Attorney Rick Cappalino assures Ciello: “We’ll never make you do something you can’t live with.”
As the almost three-hour movie unfolds, Ciello finds—to his growing dismay—that there are a great many things he will have to live with.
Treat Williams as “Danny Ciello”
Although he doesn’t have a hand in it, he’s appalled to learn that Gino Moscone, a former buddy, is going to be arrested for taking bribes from drug dealers.
Confronted by a high-ranking agent for the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency, Moscone refuses to “rat out” his buddies. Instead, he puts his service revolver to his head and blows out his brains.
Ciello is devastated, but the investigation—and film—must go on.
Along the way, he’s suspected by a corrupt cop and bail bondsman of being a “rat” and threatened with death.
He’s about to be wasted in a back alley when his cousin—a Mafia member—suddenly intervenes. The Mafioso tells Ciello’s would-be killers: “You’d better be sure he’s a rat, because people like him.”
At which point, the grotesquely fat bail bondsman—who has been demanding Ciello’s execution—pats Danny on the arm and says, “No hard feelings.”
It’s director Sidney Lumet’s way of graphically saying: “Sometimes the bad guys can be good guys—and the good guys can be bad guys.”
Lumet makes it clear that police don’t always operate with the Godlike perfection of cops in TV and films. It’s precisely because his Federal backup agents lost him that Ciello almost became a casualty.
In the end, Ciello becomes a victim of the prosecutorial forces he has unleashed. Although he’s vowed to never testify against his former partners, Ciello finds this is a promise he can’t keep.
Too many of the cops he’s responsible for indicting have implicated him of similar—if not worse—behavior. He’s even suspected of being involved in the theft of 450 pounds of heroin (“the French Connection”) from the police property room.
A sympathetic prosecutor—Mario Vincente in the movie, Rudolph Giuliani in real-life—convinces Ciello that he must finally reveal everything he knows.
Ciello’s had originally claimed to have done “three things” as a corrupt narcotics agent. By the time his true confessions are over, he’s admitted to scores of felonies.
Ciello then tries to convince his longtime SIU partners to do the same. One of them commits suicide. Another tells Ciello to screw himself: “I’m not going to shoot myself and I’m not going to become a rat.”
To his surprise, Ciello finds himself admiring his corrupt former partner for being willing to stand up to the Federal case-agents and prosecutors demanding his head.
The movie ends with a double dose of irony.
First: Armed with Ciello’s confessions, an attorney whom Ciello had successfully testified against appeals his conviction. But the judge rules Ciello’s admitted misdeeds to be “collateral,” apart from the main evidence in the case, and affirms the conviction.
Second: Ciello is himself placed on trial—of a sort. A large group of assistant U.S. attorneys gathers to debate whether their prize “canary” should be indicted. If he is, his confessions will ensure his conviction.
Some prosecutors argue forcefully that Ciello is a corrupt law enforcement officer who has admitted to more than 40 cases of perjury—among other crimes. How can the government use him to convict others and not address the criminality in his own past?
Other prosecutors argue that Ciello voluntarily risked his life—physically and professionally—to expose rampant police corruption. He deserves a better deal than to be cast aside by those who have made so many cases through his testimony.
Eventually, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York makes his decision: “The government declines to prosecute Detective Daniel Ciello.”
It is Lumet’s way of showing that the decision to prosecute is not always an easy or objective one.
The movie ends with Ciello now teaching surveillance classes at the NYPD Academy.
A student asks: “Are you the Detective Ciello?”
“I’m Detective Ciello.”
“I don’t think I have anything to learn from you.” And he walks out.
Is Danny Ciello a hero, a villain, or some combination of the two?
On this ambiguous note that the film ends—an ambiguity that each viewer must resolve for himself.
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THE AMERICAN TALIBAN IS COMING FOR YOU: PART ONE (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, RELIGION, Social commentary on February 23, 2026 at 12:05 amHamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old columnist in Saudi Arabia, decided to celebrate the birthday of the Islamic prophet Muhammed in a truly unique way.
Hamza Kashgar
In early February, 2012, he posted on Twitter a series of mock conversations between himself and Muhammad:
“On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.”
“On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more.”
“On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.”
“No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.”
The tweets sparked some 30,000 infuriated responses. Many Islamic clerics demanded that he face execution for blasphemy.
Kashgari posted an apology tweet: “I deleted my previous tweets because…I realized that they may have been offensive to the Prophet and I don’t want anyone to misunderstand.”
Soon afterward, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, then King of Saudi Arabia, ordered his arrest.
Saudi King King Abdullah
Kashgari fled to Malaysia, another majority-Muslim country. He was quickly arrested by police as he passed through Kuala Lumpur international airport. Three days later, he was deported to Saudi Arabia.
Human rights groups feared that he would be executed for blasphemy, a capitol offense in Saudi Arabia.
After nearly two years in prison, Kashgari was freed on October 29, 2013. Kashgari used Twitter to inform his supporters of his release.
Outrageous? By Western standards, absolutely.
Clearly there is no tolerance in Saudi Arabia for the freedoms of thought and expression that Americans take for granted.
Meanwhile, Right-wing American ayatollahs are working overtime to create just that sort of society—where theocratic despotism rules the most intimate aspects of our lives.
One of these is the former GOP Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. In early January, 2012, he said that states should have the right to outlaw birth control without the interference of the Supreme Court.
Rick Santorum
In an interview with ABC News, Santorum said he opposed the Supreme Court’s ruling that made birth control legal:
“The state has a right to do that [ban contraception]. I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a Constitutional right. The state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have.
“That’s the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court—they are creating rights, and it should be left up to the people to decide.”
In the landmark 1965 decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court struck down a law that made it a crime to sell contraceptives to married couples. The Constitution, ruled the Justices, protected a right to privacy.
Two years later, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Court extended Griswold by striking down a law banning the sale of contraceptives to unmarried couples.
Santorum has left no doubt as to where he stands on contraception. On October 19, 2011, he said:
“One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘“Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.’
“It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also…procreative.
“That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act….And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure.”
“How things are supposed to be”—according to Right-wing fanatics like Santorum and the evangelicals who support them.
Like the Saudi religious religious zealots who demand the death of a “blasphemer,” they demand that their religious views should govern everyone. That means Jews, Catholics, Islamics, atheists and agnostics.
American Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists fervently agree on the following:
The important difference—for Americans who value their freedom—is this:
The United States has a Supreme Court that can—and does—overturn laws that threaten civil liberties. Laws that GOP Presidential candidates clearly want to revive and force on those who don’t share their peculiar religious views.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
The same holds true—in a democracy—for citizens who resist dictatorial politicians seeking power over them.
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