Although names like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola will almost inevitably come up beforehand, Sidney Lumet is more than deserving of a reputation as one of the greatest American crime film directors. Lumet, generally speaking, is never taken seriously enough as an auteur filmmaker—perhaps because of the quality lacking in some of his mid-career work, maybe also because of the variety and diversity of themes and genres between his different works. Yet he’s left behind a handful of the greatest American films of all time.

Some of these films are much better known and widely respected—his 1957 feature debut 12 Angry Men and his 1975 Al Pacino-led masterpiece Dog Day Afternoon are generally listed among the best films ever made. But so many others remain criminally underrated, including his final film Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007).

With so much of his work so overlooked, it’s no surprise that a film like 1996’s Night Falls on Manhattan has so far been almost entirely forgotten, even with an impressive cast including Andy Garcia, James Gandolfini, Ian Holm, and Richard Dreyfuss.

The film follows Garcia as Sean Casey, a law student in his early 30s who is suddenly put onto a high-profile, seemingly open-and-shut case when his cop father Liam (Holm) is one of four police officers shot by Harlem drug dealer Jordan Washington (Shiek Mahmud-Bey). Eventually winning the case, Sean is voted in as the district attorney and dedicates himself to cracking down on police corruption. The rest of the film focuses on Sean’s attempts to root out police corruption as his morals are tested, and he begins to question whether the legal system can ever be clean at all.

In many ways, Night Falls on Manhattan defies the audience’s expectations of the crime/legal thriller genre by bringing in relatively large-scale stories but allowing them to unfold in very character-oriented, detailed, emotive and intimate ways. Rather than attempting to maximise tension or include explosive action sequences, Lumet instead allows the majority of the film’s drama and its revelations to emerge from relatively casual conversations, slowly revealing the true hearts and complexity of the characters through smart, naturalistic dialogue and strong performances.

This is a bold move, but thankfully the cast of Night Falls on Manhattan is strong enough to alleviate some of the pressure, not to say that Lumet as a director and screenwriter isn’t doing strong work behind the camera, particularly in terms of blocking. Primarily, the performances are relied on to bring the emotions to the surface, and it is lucky that the often mediocre Andy Garcia delivers one of his finest performances. He occasionally falls into being over the top, but generally he’s precise and strikingly dedicated. Sean is a man striving for absolute perfection in the legal system, maintaining the idealism of a young man as he moves from lawyer to district attorney. His gradual discovery that maintaining perfection within himself and the law will be impossible is played very well by Garcia as genuine heartbreak and disillusionment. The film as a whole would certainly be less impactful without his work.

But Garcia is far from the only actor delivering a strong performance in Night Falls on Manhattan. Ian Holm delivers some of the best work in this film given how well he plays contrasting emotions to make his character feel incredibly realistic and grounded. James Gandolfini, seen here three years before he would solidify himself as one of the essential faces of crime media in The Sopranos, is solid too, even if he is outshone by a seriously good Richard Dreyfuss who commands attention in only a handful of scenes.

Balancing the quality of these performances against an engaging story about police corruption and the impossibility of a perfect legal system, Night Falls on Manhattan is admittedly not as strong as Sidney Lumet’s best films, but it is an unfairly overlooked film with some intelligent points to make.

Blu-ray Limited Edition Special Features

• 2K remaster from the original negative by Arrow Films
• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
• Original lossless 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Archive commentary by director Sidney Lumet
• Archive commentary by actors Andy Garcia and Ron Leibman, with producers Josh Kramer and Thom Mount
• The Directors: Sidney Lumet, an hour-long archive documentary from 2002 featuring interviews with Lumet, Garcia, Leibman, Jack Lemmon, Rod Steiger, Christopher Walken and others
• On-set interviews with Lumet, Garcia, Dreyfuss, Olin, Holm and Leibman
• Behind-the-scenes footage
• Theatrical trailer and TV spots
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tom Ralston
• Collectors’ booklet featuring writing on the film by Nick Clement and original production notes

Night Falls on Manhattan will be released by Arrow Video on limited edition Blu-ray on 14 September.