The Seven Five (2014)

It’s that priceless dialogue, the bitter ironies, the magnificently skeevy cast of characters and even the overall structure that make The Seven Five “Goodfellas” in blue.

The Seven Five makes for a fascinating character study, but the doc's drama is also compelling.

This kind of story has been told endlessly in dramatic movies and TV shows, but rarely has a film offered characters like these telling their own stories.

Director Tiller Russell doesn’t spin this gripping tale out of cinematic bravado like Scorsese—just extensive interviews with all the people involved, footage of a commission hearing after the fact, and a wealth of stock material on Brooklyn’s East Side. But he paints a vivid picture all the same.

The tagline for Tiller Russell’s riveting new documentary, The Seven Five is “Meet the dirtiest cop in NYC history,” which I suspect does a profound disservice to a lot of other NYC policemen, past and present — although none of them are likely to write letters of complaint.