‘Homicide’

As a writer-director, David Mamet has appropriated the trappings of a police procedural to make a remarkably personal film about identity, loyalty, paranoia and anti-Semitism. Even though the 1991 film, with its serious implausibility and inconsistency, ends up falling off the tracks, it absolutely holds your interest with the passion that powerfully felt but ultimately screwy efforts have. Joe Mantegna (left) stars as a big-city detective, a Jew who resents being pulled off a glamorous FBI case to work on a ghetto murder, the slaying of an old Jewish woman in her inner-city store--which her family insists is part of some bizarre anti-Jewish conspiracy. However, Mantegna’s detective has embarked upon a fascinating quest in search of personal and cultural identity, trying to decide what it means to be a cop and whether it is possible to be loyal to both masters. With William C. Masey, another Mamet actor.

(TMC Tuesday at 8 p.m.)