10 Movies Where The First Scene Is The Best
6. Narc
And now for a criminally underappreciated film that just doesn't get talked about enough.
Openings don't get much more intense than that of Joe Carnahan's 2002 crime thriller Narc, which immediately throws audiences into the thick of it as undercover narcotics cop Nick Tellis (Jason Patric) chases a drug dealer through the Detroit streets.
The dealer shoots a man dead during the chase, and then desperately goes on to take a young child hostage at a playground.
In a panic, Tellis opens fire on the dealer, killing him instantly, but a stray bullet also clips the child's pregnant mother, gravely wounding her and causing her to ultimately miscarry.
The sequence barely lasts two minutes and is basically wordless, but Carnahan stages it with such pulse-racing, frantic intensity that it immediately draws the viewer into the fraught world of being a "narc" while also efficiently establishing the trauma Nick carries around with him.
Narc's a riveting piece of work from start to finish, but before Ray Liotta's unpredictable Lt. Oak even joins the fray, it's already found its sure peak.