Internal Affairs is a 1990 American crime thriller film set in Los Angeles about the police department's Internal Affairs Division.
Directed by Mike Figgis, the film stars Richard Gere as Dennis Peck, a suave womanizer, clever manipulator and crooked cop who uses his fellow officers as pawns for his own nefarious purposes while showing a tender side as a devoted father. Andy García plays Raymond Avilla, the Internal Affairs agent who becomes obsessed with catching Peck when he suspects that Peck is not the poster boy police officer that the precinct has made him out to be.
Tagline: Trust him... he's a cop.
Plot
The movie opens with a night-time drug bust where Patrolmen Dennis Peck (Richard Gere) and Van Stretch (William Baldwin) are arresting a drug pusher and his girlfriend. The girlfriend resists and Stretch starts assaulting both of them. Meanwhile, Patrolman Dorian Fletcher (Michael Beach) is outside and sees a man running towards him. He orders the man to stop then promptly shoots him. Peck comes outside and discovers that the man had no weapon. Dorian is repentant and apologetic, but Peck proceeds to take a knife out of his boot, clean off his prints, then place it in the dead man's hand, making it look like he was an armed assailant. Dorian tries to stop Peck, but Peck convinces him that cops watch each others backs and that this is the best solution for everyone.
Los Angeles, 7 November 1989
Raymond Avila joins the Internal Affairs Division (IAD) of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and is assigned to work with Amy Wallace. They are initially assigned to investigate Van Stretch's activities from the drug-bust. During a mandatory interrogation, it is discovered that Stretch has committed three code 181's for excessive force in less than ten months, has a uncontrollable substance abuse issue, and is a racist officer. After interviewing his wife, they start looking closely at his other activities, because his financial holdings start to suggest something suspicious.
Stretch's partner, Dennis Peck, so called role model of the LAPD seems to have no clue to his partner's private life...so others may think. Yet, as Stretch comes under pressure from Avila to help him deal with his problems, certain issues about Peck begin to surface. For example, an altercation between Peck and Dorian Fletcher (Michael Beach) is witnessed by several other patrolmen, and other officers' distaste for Peck and his techniques. Stretch is pressured to provide evidence against Peck in return for immunity from prosecution. While this fails, Avila finds a type of ally in Dorian, who also displays a certain disrespect toward the similarities between Avila and Peck, but agrees to help. Peck also threatens to make advances on Kathleen Avila, Raymond's wife, if Avila still persists in his investigation. At the same time, Raymond's marriage is starting to wilt due to his increased obsession with the case.
As Avila and Wallace start applying pressure to Stretch, he visits Dennis and, while playing out the moves of a tea party for Dennis' six-year old says "If I roll over on you, I skate" and later "I got nothing left to lose." Dennis, very calmly, and without breaking "tea party talk" says "don't you ever threaten me."
6 December 1989,
Peck and Stretch are on routine patrol on the graveyard shift in a radio car in East Los Angeles. While heading through an industrial sector, they run across an abandoned blue van. Everything appears routine, until Stretch opens the sliding door, and takes a shotgun blast point blank range to the chest. As the shooter emerges from the vehicle, it is clear that this was a hit staged by Peck, who congratulates the killer, and then proceeds to kill him. He requests assistance to a 187 on a peace officer, when the blue van speeds away, indicating a live witness to the crime, thus putting a wrench in Dennis' plan. Van, amazingly still alive, begs for help. Dennis kneels down, seeming like he is going to help his partner, but positions himself to strangle him, making it appear to the arriving ambulance crew as if Van died in his arms. Peck tells investigators that the perpetrator killed Van Stretch and that he himself had to kill the perpetrator in self-defense. This scene is pivotal to the balance of the film, as it establishes the ruthlessness of Dennis, and leaves no doubt that he will stop at nothing to eliminate any/all rivals, even if they wear a badge.
17 December 1989,
After making efforts to track down the witness to Van Stretch's murder, a sting is set up to catch him. However, things get bloody after the information of the sting is somehow leaked, and Avila and Wallace notice a sudden response from two LAPD SWAT tactical units, who shoot on sight. The witness panics, shooting and killing Dorian, before he is taken out by a police sniper. As he dies in Avila's arms, he identifies Peck as the man behind Stretch's murder.
7 January 1990,
Later, Peck meets with Kathleen Avila, insinuating to be IAD, himself, to ask some questions about Raymond's behavior at home, and other innocent-on-the-surface types of questions. The real intent is so Raymond, who is "covertly" following Dennis as part of his investigation, sees Dennis and Kathleen meeting, thus establishing that Dennis can manipulate the game to his advantage. This episode also serves to put Raymond "on tilt" and he goes back to the office, slams a chair down and is sent home. Entering the elevator who does he see, but Dennis, who greets him with a head-butt, and proceeds to beat Raymond as he insults him and talks of bedding Raymond's wife that very day. In leaving the elevator, Dennis says (mockingly sympathetic) "Clean yourself up" and throws a pair of (presumably Kathleen's) panties at Raymond (a scene reminiscent of an earlier altercation where Raymond punches Peck in the face and tosses his handkerchief at Peck while saying "Clean yourself up"). Raymond's rage boils over, and he goes looking for Kathleen, finding her at Nicky Blair's on Sunset Strip with a client from the gallery where she works. Raymond proves he is totally off the hook when he confronts Kathleen about the lunch meeting with Peck, asking "who did you have lunch with?" When she says "none of your fucking business," he reveals the panties. He then punches out the client Kathleen is dining with, slaps Kathleen to the floor and screams obscenities in Spanish at all the customers in the restaurant, ultimately saying "You got a problem with that, Nicky (Blair)?" The two make up the following morning when Kathleen convinces Raymond that she had not slept with Peck.
10 January 1990,
Avila and Wallace's continued pressure on Peck's family bears fruit when Peck's wife reveals the name of one of his associates, Steven Arrocas, which also happens to be the last name of two recent homicide victims. Wallace and Avila know this is far more than a coincidence, and pay a visit to the Arrocas house in Malibu.
As Raymond and Amy are en route to the house, Arrocas walks in on Peck making love to his (Arrocas') wife. Peck tries to goad Arrocas into killing his wife, but Arrocas accidentally shoots Peck in the foot instead. Peck kills Arrocas (though this is not shown on camera). Avila and Wallace arrive, and as they are clearing the house, Peck pops out from behind some garbage cans in the garage and shoots Wallace in the chest, then flees. Avila, fearing for his wife's safety, returns home to find Peck about to assault his wife. Avila, unnoticed, holds Peck at gun-point and then shoots him before Peck can attack him.
Cast
External links
