I have never watched a good drama/crime movie. It was on my local television back then in my high school years and I watched it when I was 15. Now I watched it again after 12 years and yes, again: This is the best crime drama movie ever.This kind of friendship turns into a ruin! How can it happen. Oh, you better watch it if you are wondering.And lastly, I was about to cry when I saw that cockroach going to freedom in the end.10/10 Would watch, again.

I never heard of this movie before and caught it by chance late at night on cable TV. I, like everyone else is writing in his comments, was surprised at how well the characters were developed and how exciting the whole movie was. Of course it had some minor flaws, but overall the plot was gripping and the acting was top notch. If you have the chance to grab it on DVD, do not miss this one out. It is way better than the more infamous and similar "Copland" and, besides "Goodfellas", is one of Ray Liotta's best. Don't let the rating fool you, if it had been advertised better, it probably would have an overall rating of 7.5/10.

****SPOILERS**** Really off-the-wall movie about police corruption, professional as well as personal, in the Phoenix PD with more double-crosses in the movie then in a cemetery. As your watching the film "Phoenix" your tempted to call your local police precinct and report a crime in progress, the movie, only to put down the phone feeling the police that your calling are the same police in the film.Ray Liotta, Officer Harry Collins, is about the most normal of the bunch of cops focused on in the movie; Officers Mike Henshaw James Nutter Fred Shuster & Let. Clyde Webber, Anthony Lapaglia Daniel Baldwin Jeremy Priven & Xander Berkely. Collins lives by a code that he follows in that being a sick and degenerate gambler he doesn't welsh on a bet that he made, which is the movies main storyline. Collins wants to pay off his lone shark bookie Chicago, Tom Noonan, $32,000.00 that he owes him in betting action and he doesn't want to kill anybody. Which is something that Collins seems to have a lot of trouble keeping from doing in the movie. Besides Chicago there's also Louie,Glancario Esposito, a pimp drug dealer and loan shark, who has Officer Henshaw working for him as a collector and enforcer. Incredibly the cops in "Phoenix" are even worse then the aforementioned gangsters, that's just how bad they are. The police in the movie are made to look so bad that even their boss Let. Webber, Xander Berkley, who at first we see trying to set them up and have them arrested for their crimes is really only interested in ripping them off of their ill gotten gains and keeping them for himself. Collins is always betting in the movie from horses to cards even to cockroaches and raindrops rolling down his car windshield that makes you wonder how he can find time to do his job as a Phoenix policeman? "Phoenix" is so anti-police that it makes you dislike the cops on the screen even if you want to find a reason to like them which it gives you none. Besides being corrupt the cops,Collins Henshaw Nutter &Shuster, are also very stupid as well. They end up wiping themselves out in some of the most ridicules shoot-outs that I've ever seen in a cop movie. There's a rip-off of Louie's joint later in the film to get his weekly, or was it monthly , take of some $250,000.00 that was so funny as well as bloody and brutal that it looked like a scene out of a Marks Brothers comedy. Anjelica Huston & Brittany Murphy as Leila and her daughter Veronica were totally wasted in the film and I have the feeling that they had much bigger parts in the movie but most of their scenes were left on the cutting room floor, lucky for them. Ray Liotta was at his best playing the sick and unstable Officer Collins which seen to be the kinds of roles that he been playing in movies over the last ten years or so. The cops in the movie were co corrupt and horrid in their actions that they made the corrupt cops in the film "Serpico" look like boy scouts stealing cookies from girl scouts. In one real nauseating episode Officer Henshaw has the terrified wife, Sibel Ergener, of Carl, Murphy Dunne, put out for him as her helpless husband is handcuffed to a pipe in their home. The next day Carl kills himself and Henshaw on the scene with Carl's wife present calmly puts his finger to his mouth as if to tell her to shut her mouth about what happened between him and her and Carl if she knows what's good for her. The most sympathetic cop in the movie, next to Collins, Officer Shuster had his wife Katie, Kari Wuhrer,having affairs with almost all the cops in the precinct, except Shuster's partner Collins. Still Shuster thought that Collins was also involved with Katie and sets his partner together with Henshaw and Nutter up to get caught by Let. Webber; who unknown to Shuster is also having an affair with Katie. Let. Webber was only interested in getting the $250,000.00 that the corrupt cops ripped off from Louie and after getting his hands on the cash shot both Shuster who died and Collins who survived and got away. Collins ends the movie by killing Chicago and his mobsters for murdering a witness who Collins refused to kill! Thats because killing is not what Officer Collins is all about! that makes a lot of sense doesn't it? Anjelica Huston in the small part that she had in the movie was about the most positive person in the film. That doesn't say much were everyone in it, the cops and gangsters, were about as sympathetic as Charles "Sweet Charlie" Manson.

I saw this movie at an art-house theater here in L.A. and it's too bad that it's theatrical run was very limited because it truly is a wonderful film with great all around performances, a tight script and wonderful job by the director. I happen to see this film just recently again on cable and looking at it now I have to say that it was probably ahead of it's time. Many of the faces you see in this film have gone on to become big stars. But let's not also forget how the director was able to blend and mesh the rough edges and desert heat of Phoenix with the narrative. This was a film that kept you glued to the screen with not a dull moment. There were no cheesy lines or ridiculous dialogue that makes many films of this genre fail. Phoenix succeeds in every way.