Get tickets, showtimes and more at MSN Movies

Well before Edward Norton shot this past summer's hit "The Incredible Hulk," and months before Colin Farrell shot last winter's "In Bruges," the duo starred in the New York police drama "Pride and Glory." A victim of New Line Cinema's absorption into parent company Warner Bros., "Glory" is finally getting released this month.

Directed by Gavin O'Connor ("Miracle"), "Glory" centers on Ray Tierney, an NYPD detective (Norton) who discovers unethical behavior by his brother-in-law (Farrell), also a city cop. How Tierney handles the corruption ends up not only affecting his immediate family members (who are all on the force), but also the entire police department. Norton says it was the slow reveal of his character in the screenplay that drew him to the project.

"One of the things I noted when I read it was for a long time you learn more about him from other people talking about him than from the things he says. It's just very mysterious," Norton says. "I found myself reading along and going, 'Huh? I wonder what the deal is with this guy.' That's unusual sometimes in a script because a lot of times people will telegraph, you know, make sure you understand the character."

A selection at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, "Pride" left many critics disheartened because its take on the crime genre wasn't anything new. But Norton clearly disagrees.

"Sometimes people talk about genre as though that's a simplistic thing or a bad thing, but I think we go back again and again because there's something in it that we're fascinated by," Norton says. "The way Gavin and Joe Carnahan had structured this in the script, I look at it and felt like this has questions in it. This is questioning dynamics that our whole country is sorting through right now, and maybe that makes it special to our moment."

And while the producers are privately smarting about the film's delay (and, no doubt, limited release), Norton thinks that, in hindsight, the fall opening is the best thing that could have happened.

"It's like our whole country is engaged right now in a large national conversation about the issues of our country leading up to the election, and people are discussing all kinds of issues. But I think people are in a very thoughtful frame of mind right now," Norton says. "People are doing a lot of thinking about what their priorities are and what our ethics are."

Speaking of the political arena, Norton has been out of sight most of the year working on a documentary chronicling Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

"We're making an historical record, not something to play a role in the election, and so we have an agreement that this is something that we won't talk a lot about or really publicize until the election is over," Norton says sheepishly. "But it's a fascinating thing to be able to be documenting, and I think we'll definitely have an opportunity to talk to you about that process and how it unfolded when it's all over, but we kind of have to stay off the record until it's all resolved."

"Pride and Glory" opens in limited release on Oct. 24.