Two hours of sweaty, macho headbutting ensues. Gere’s charming, ruthless sociopath — his glassy eyes and false smile work a treat here — steals the show.

Gere is hypnotic, writer Henry Bean's construction is entertainingly intricate, and director Mike Figgis knows how to turn on a subtle, authentic erotic heat.

Figgis never lets the pace slow long enough to expose the story's thinness despite, in retrospect, a moderate amount of action.

Mike Figgis seems the least likely to succeed at a straight-ahead cop thriller. As the plot pushes past logical boundaries of even the most lumbering bureaucracy, it’s not surprising that "Internal Affairs" becomes an almost full-blown deconstruction.