New York before the 90′s was something else. It was dirty and filthy everywhere. Over the years, politicians slowly but surely transformed the Big Apple into a tourist-safe destination. But in order to do so, some sweeping needed to be done. If crime and corruption disappeared from the naked eye, it’s because they pushed it somewhere else. The Seven Five is a documentary about some of the dirtiest cops in recent NYC history; cops from the 75th precinct.
Sometimes, documentaries just beg to get adapted into a feature film. With Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) by the Rolling Stones blasting through the end credits and the New York City setting, The Seven Five feels like the best movie Martin Scorsese has yet to make.
When asked during his testimony if he was a cop or a drug trafficker, dirty police officer Mike Dowd answered: “Both”. As Tiller Russell exposes in his documentary, the 75th was such a crime-heavy precinct, that it was easy to blur the lines and get away with it. Even if he lets him brag a little bit about his crimes, Russell is very careful in the way he depicts Dowd. However, he ends up looking like a legendary crime figure, like a cop version of Henry Hill (Goodfellas).
Making a brilliant use of old black and white pictures and archival footage, the city of New York itself becomes a character in this documentary. It helps to explain how Mike Dowd and his partners were thinking, how they justified their actions. From their point of view, they were stealing criminals, not real people.
You might have seen this story told countless times, but rarely did we truly explore the logic behind police corruption. If anything, this documentary exposes the reality that sometimes the “culture” of an environnement can shape you into a corrupted individual. Sadly, even if the streets of New York are cleaner than ever, the problem still remains.
·ONE·JAM·TART· Quick & Dirty Film Reviews | Precinct Seven Five
One of those rare gems of documentary that truly tries to tell the story from multiple perspectives and invites you to empathise and mourn with each victim of circumstance and character.
