'Pride And Glory' (R)(out of four)

"Pride and Glory" has finally made it to the big screen, but breaks no new ground. In fact, with a run time of about 120 minutes, it's 100 minutes too long.

The inside baseball story is that the film's March release date was delayed due to internal haggling at the movie studio. They can say what they will, but there really wasn't a reason to push this film into movie theaters.

The problem? We've seen the same storyline before; corruption on the police force, families aligned to one another yet trying to do what's right, and on, and on.

To give the film credit where it's due, director Gavin O'Connor succeeds in giving his film some heart. He's the son of a New York police officer and grew up in the family of the New York Police Department -- something that definitely has earned him points in the reality department.

Conceived by O'Connor, his brother Greg, and screenwriter Joe Carnahan, best known for his gritty cop drama "Narc," the filmmakers obviously imagined this movie to be something more than a retread. "Pride and Glory" would dig deeper than others into the psyche of a multigenerational police family whose badge of honor is the NYPD. Sorry, guys, it doesn't.

Edward Norton plays Ray Tierney, a guy devoted to the force who lives on a houseboat on the Hudson River (do they still allow that?). He's spent the last few years relegated to the missing persons beat after an incident left his face, his police career, and his pride scarred. He's a nice guy whose father, the chief of police (played by Jon Voight ), believes the kid has some talent for police work, and hopes one day to get him back on his feet and back out on the street.

Colin Farrell plays the bombastic Jimmy, a policeman who's part of the uniformed family by marriage. The family also includes flesh-and-blood brother Francis Jr., played by Noah Emmerich, who's risen to the rank of commander.

The movie picks up when the quartet learns that four cops have been killed during a drug bust gone bad, but something isn't adding up. It's just the ticket Ray needs to get him back playing detective. Of course, he starts to stick his nose in places he shouldn't, and sooner rather than later discovers there may be a connection to the killings that's hitting close to home -- close to Jimmy, Francis Jr., and even Francis Sr.

"Pride and Glory" could've been a movie worth seeing a few decades ago before "Hill Street Blues" walked the personal-choices-are-tough-when-you're-a-police-officer beat beginning in 1981. Yet O'Connor does do a good job bringing the film into this century by using the corruption of law enforcement as a metaphor of other entities that collapse when moral discretion goes awry.

When your mind wanders during some of the overly clichéd scenes, particularly the playing in the snow scene with Jimmy's loving wife (the beautiful Lake Bell) and happy children, or the depressing plotline that fits in nowhere of Francis Jr.'s wife battle with cancer (wait it's another metaphor in a metaphor, right?), or maybe the overplayed Christmas dinner scene, you'll think about the famous failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and even Enron.

There are plenty of more metaphors to be found, including the deep symbolism of the slice on Norton's cheek suggesting that reminders of the past and the situations of the present cut deep to the core of Detective Ray Tierney.

The movie is most likely to receive this year's award for most F-words used in the first 20 minutes of a film, and another one for the team of makeup artists who created that most believable cheek gash.

Otherwise, "Pride and Glory" is destined to find its way into the DVD collections of Norton and Farrell fans.

Like some of its characters, the movie has a fatal flaw. It deserves the subtitle: "Been There, Seen That."