You know what it’s like when you hurt yourself unexpectedly, the sudden shock and then the pain? That’s what you go through in the opening salvo of Narc. Director Joe Carnahan sets his stall out early with a thrilling, vomit inducing foot chase through the slums of Detroit. We follow Jason Patrick through a ludicrously jumpy handheld camera that makes the head swirl. He tracks down the perp and, well I’m not going to spoil it. It may be the opening 5 minutes, but you really do need to see it first hand. It sets the tone for the rest of the film wonderfully and truly takes the breath away.

Narc is a dirty movie, very dirty. Carnahan throws caution to the wind in his depiction of the criminal underbelly of Detroit. We see the lowest of the low in this film, real scum, the kind of scum that Travis Bickle wanted a rain to come and wash of the streets. Drug dealers, addicts, pimps, prostitutes, bent cops; these are the kind of characters that populate Carnahan’s vision. Shot with washed out tones and seemingly in the coldest of conditions, the mood is oppressive and given the tone of the movie, it’s well suited.

There is little doubt that Carnahan is one to watch if you are a fan of visually arresting cinema. Handheld cameras, fast choppy editing, split screen, focus blur and many more visual tricks are employed to give Narc its stunning look. The film has the feel of 70’s cop thriller like The French Connection, but uses modern movie making techniques to give the film an original spin that comes off excellently.

The thing that really impressed me about Carnahan was not only the visual style that he brought to the film, but also his ability to shoot actors and give them room to act. A lot of the current crop of young directors can handle action and imbue a nice visual style, but fall flat when asked to shoot a scene that contains just acting. The likes of Michael Bay, McG and Brett Ratner may be competent visual directors, but they clearly have a lot to learn about working with actors. In this respect I liken Carnahan to Darren Aronofsky, another very visual director who is more than capable of bring it all back and letting actors do their thing.

In Narc, Carnahan woks well with his actors to eke out off them what may be considered some of their finest work to date. Both Ray Liotta and Jason Patric inhabit what could be seen as the leading role, but neither outshines the other. Liotta has the scene stealing character, Henry Oak is a huge brute of a man, imposing, but approachable enough. Get on his wrong side, piss him off at all however and he will be all over you in a second. Liotta looks about 20 years older and 5 stone heavier than I last saw him, it gives him a very imposing presence and he dominates his scenes.

Yes, Oak is a brutal man, but some of Liotta’s best work in Narc comes not from the scenes where the rage takes over, but from his more gentle scenes. Most impressive is a scene where he and Tellis are staking out a house. They start talking and end up speaking about their families. Oak goes on to give a wonderful monologue that is emotionally cutting and ultimately chilling. All the while the scene is simply filmed by Carnahan with one camera outside the car, give the actors room and they will make the scene, great direction.

Tellis’ character is also troubled; whilst undercover he suffered from a drug addiction that nearly tore his family apart. After 18 months of time off his family has fell into a lull of safety. In-fact the only times when the film feels at all welcoming is during the scenes at the Tellis household. Warm colours are used and we see Tellis with his wife and new child. These scenes make for a welcome respite from the harshness of the rest of the movie. Tellis’ family provides the moral centre of the film and as it starts to crumble due to his new case so does the morality of the film.

For me this is as good as I have seen Jason Patric, in the past he has flitted between good roles in films like ‘Sleepers’ and ‘Rush’ and bad roles in nonsense like ‘Speed 2’. He has never really found a niche; hopefully after his stunning turn here we can see a lot more of the good Jason Patric. His Tellis is haunted by the events in that opening scene, his character always seems to be at a distance form reality. He is quiet, but never weak; Patric’s eyes never show weakness. It’s testament to the quality of Patric's understated performance that he never gets overshadowed by Liotta’s showier part.

At its core Narc is basically a standard buddy cop thriller, the sort of story that wouldn’t seem out of place in a straight to TV drama. It’s has it’s fair share of clichés and the final reel has a lot of exposition flying around. It is however both the stunning visuals and the knockout performances by the two leads that rise Narc above the competition. What also helps is an incredible closing scene that serves to both tie up the loose ends and knock you out with its brazen and unexpected events. You know when you watch a film and you think to yourself ‘right, that’s it fade to black, end film’ and it doesn’t? Well, Narc ended exactly where I thought it should, no unneeded epilogue, just a kick ass finale that blows you away.