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The Glass Shield
The movie focuses on rookie cop J.J. (Michael Boatman), the first black officer in his squad. Through J.J., the film examines several incidents of racist behavior amongst the cops and within the legal system.
31 May 1960, St. Clair Shores, Michigan, USA
8 January 1948, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
8 August 1926, Long Branch, New Jersey, USA
25 September 1946, Buffalo, New York, USA
25 October 1964, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
8 June 1939, Wyco, West Virginia, USA
20 September 1969, New York City, New York, USA
1 October 1950, Chicago, Illinois, USA
12 February 1950, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
28 August 1959, Omaha, Nebraska, USA
August 29, 2005
Burnett uses a socially discomforting scenario that has only vague implications of deeper malice to initiate a brave portrayal of a Caucasian-centric sort of martial law.
March 26, 2009
A powerful moral drama that tries to deal with the racism at the root of many problems in contempo American society.
January 01, 2000
It has both ideas and a point of view. But the ideas are far from new, and the point of view is blatantly knee-jerk.
August 16, 2005
The film's ambition makes Burnett's occasional overstatement easy to forgive.
March 15, 2013
An angry anti-cop message flick directed and written to be subversive by angry LA based indie filmmaker Charles Burnett.
July 06, 2010
Ambition is something to respect in an artist, but Charles Burnett's police-corruption drama The Glass Shield is such a maladroit piece of filmmaking that its weighty themes and sclerotic tangle of a plot end up making it a trial to sit through.
June 24, 2006
The movie feels sketchy, as if Burnett chopped the flesh off his screenplay and left us only the bare bones.
August 17, 2006
Despite studio interference, it's still a decent film, and the association of a black man and a Jewish woman (as two outcasts) is a welcome addition to the genre.
August 09, 2005
an entirely honorable - if inevitably doomed - attempt to reconcile Burnett's political and social concerns with the requisites of mass entertainment.
January 01, 2000
An implausible, wearisome clunker trying to ring true but making only dull thuds.
August 13, 2005
Credit writer/director Burnett for having the courage of his convictions, even if the outcome is a film that a lot of people will see as clichéd and stereotyped.
February 13, 2001
It's a rigorous, angry piece of work, but it misses out on the psychological depths that have made Burnett's previous films among the glories of recent American independent moviemaking.
