The Son of No One

If Dito Montiel knew as much about subtlety and narrative coherence as he does about life in New York City, then The Son of No One might not have become such a melodramatic mess.

The latest Big Apple thriller from Montiel (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Fighting) is an evocative look at the filmmaker’s home city during a volatile time of healing in 2002. That’s just the backdrop, however, for a predictable low-budget police drama that squanders a talented cast.

The film stars Channing Tatum as Jonathan, a second-generation Staten Island cop who begins an assignment near the crime-infested Queens neighborhood where he grew up.

Problems arise when anonymous letters arrive at the desk of a local newspaper columnist (Juliette Binoche), prompting the NYPD to investigate a 16-year old double-homicide cold case that hits close to home for Jonathan.

His captain (Ray Liotta) is anxious for the situation to wrap up, but threatening phone calls to his wife (Katie Holmes) means that Jonathan will have to revisit his childhood, and specifically a friend (Tracy Morgan) who shares a dark secret.

Tatum seems to be maturing as an actor, and his performance here as a working-class father shows restraint. Holmes and Liotta navigate their way through various arguments (not with each other), and Al Pacino pops in to chew the scenery in a half-dozen or so scenes as a retired detective connected to the case. Morgan, known for broad comedy, gets credit for trying a change-of-pace role.

Montiel obviously has an affinity for New York, and he captures some images of urban beauty, such as repeated aerial shots of the jagged rooftops of the Queensbridge Projects and various bridges and skyscrapers. He also captures the palpable tension inside the average police precinct on any given day.

Where the film stumbles is with Montiel’s flashback-laden script, which doesn’t offer much in the way of character motivations or dramatic flow, perhaps the result of some editing-room tinkering following a debut at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Those problems are exemplified in a climactic confrontation that feels hopelessly contrived and hardly supplies sufficient resolution.

Rated R, 90 minutes.