Pride and Glory" is a textbook example of what a movie looks like when it is made up of an A+ cast and a D+ script.

Colin Farrell, fresh off an underrated comedic performance in "In Bruges," is brilliantly evil with shades of good; Edward Norton is solid as per usual as a good man who finds himself consistently in a corner precisely because he is a good man; Jon Voight, aging gracefully, is absolutely convincing both as a true-blue cop and a father; Noah Emmerich, exuding purity even in the face of horrible situations, makes his character's pain vivid; John Ortiz, who starred opposite Farrell in "Miami Vice" as the villain, is so visibly conflicted it is hard to watch him without shouting at the screen.

And yet, they are all betrayed by a script that peters out embarrassingly in its final act. Norton and Farrell, specifically, are undermined by a finale that involves the old "throw down your gun so we can fight fist-to-fist and settle this like men" idiocy. And if that were not bad enough (it is), Norton's character actually says this line with a straight face: "You broke our hearts, Jimmy."

Memo to writers Gavin O'Connor (who also directed) and Joe Carnahan: "The Godfather" this is not.

Norton plays Detective Ray Tierney. Farrell plays Sergeant Jimmy Egan. And while "Pride and Glory" eventually boils down to that final showdown between Ray and Jimmy, the story is really about loyalty. Everyone is loyal to something at the end of the day in O'Connor's eyes. The question is just what you choose to be loyal to.

For many in the New York Police Department, it seems assumed that cops should be loyal to fellow cops. Voight, who plays Francis Tierney, Sr. (father to Ray and Ray's brother Francis Jr., played by Emmerich), tells Ray at one point that anything that reflects poorly on cops is just bad for everybody. Never mind that Ray's investigation quickly points to fellow policemen doing some awful things.

For Ray, his loyalty is to doing the right thing. Still, he loves his family and is torn when he realizes doing the right thing will bring shame not just to the NYPD but to his family specifically. Jimmy?

Well, ol' Jimmy is the root of all the problems. I'm not playing spoiler if you've seen the incredibly revealing previews: Jimmy is a dirty cop. Without getting too detailed, just know that Ray's investigation into the murder of four cops is thanks to Jimmy. Soon enough, in case there's any doubt about the doting father (while he is with his family), we get to see Jimmy and his partner forcing information out of a suspect. After breaking into the man's apartment and getting nowhere with him directly, even after Jimmy knocks out a few of his teeth, Jimmy grabs the man's baby as his wife and other family members look on in terror. Next, Jimmy takes a sizzling hot iron and ... the man talks. It is one of the most memorable scenes from "Pride and Glory" and it erases any doubt about what has to happen to Jimmy before the ending credits.

The first 90 minutes of this two-hour film had me sold. I was in. The drama was real. The conflicts were intense, interesting. The acting was superb. I even had tears welling up at a family dinner scene in which Francis Sr. chokes up while talking about his kids.

Then the last half hour happened. Then "You broke our hearts, Jimmy" happened.

You broke my heart, "Pride and Glory."