Q & A

Q & A (1990) is a New York crime thriller directed by Sidney Lumet that you can watch online on iFILM, starring Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton, and Armand Assante.

Detective Brennan — a veteran NYPD man with a hair-trigger temper — shoots a small-time dealer and claims self-defense. Routine. Young assistant DA Al Reilly is assigned to close the case quietly, but the witness statements don't line up. Every thread Reilly pulls reveals another layer of cover-up, and it becomes clear that Brennan is protected by something bigger than any single precinct captain.

Lumet had been investigating police corruption on screen since Serpico (1973) and Prince of the City (1981), and Q & A feels like the completion of that trilogy. Nolte's Brennan is brutal and fully inhabited — not a cartoon villain but a man the system built and now shields. For a film this uncomfortable, it moves fast. Stream Q & A online on iFILM.