Internal Affairs may mark Richard Gere's (An Officer and a Gentleman) return to the big screen, but the film belongs to Andy Garcia.

Andy Garcia . . . the name sounds familiar, but you can't place it, right? Well, it is time to commit his name to memory. Garcia (The Untouchables) is not only one of the saving graces of this film, but he is quickly becoming a rising star in a glitter-filled Hollywood.

Garcia plays Raymond Avilla, a police officer newly assigned to the Internal Affairs Department. Partnered with Amy Wallace (Laurie Metcalf of TV's Roseanne), they tackle the assignment of investigating whether one of Avilla's old buddies from the police academy has a substance abuse problem.

Their investigations soon verify that Avilla's friend has quite a few more problems. Enter the friend's evil partner, Dennis Peck (Richard Gere).

The plot line is hardly an original one: crooked cops and an evil system hidden within a good one. As a result, much --if not all -- of the movie is predictable. Not only is the sequence of events predictable, but viewers will find that they can probably say some of the lines of dialogue before the characters have a chance to spit them out.

Case in point: Peck's line of "Of course you can trust me --I'm a cop." Instead of sending chills down the spines of the audience at the terrific dramatic irony, forces viewers to fight off the urge to laugh at the ridiculous cliche.

However, the film is not totally unsuccessful at portraying Peck's evil. Granted, a genuine dislike for Peck will grow in the average viewer; however, this dislike could have been elevated to hate, if the filmmakers chose to tackle the characters in another way.

For instance, many of the characters closest to Peck are never fully developed.

Despite the piling list of negative aspects, the film does have a few saving graces.

As mentioned before, one positive aspect is Garcia's performance. Many people will walk into this movie thinking that Gere will steal the film but his character never quite reaches the dimensions Garcia's does.

Garcia's incredibly intense screen presence can be found in his piercing brown eyes. These eyes tell exactly what he's feeling: their expressions switch from anger, to hurt, to jealousy to joy at the flick of a switch. Garcia's intensity develops into an integrity, too.

Laurie Metcalf also adds vigor to the film. She does as good a job she can with her limited role, and her efforts bring an occasional and vital bit of comic relief.

Other positive aspects included the use of scoring, intensified with background noise, to enhance highly emotional or climaxing scenes without using trite dialogue. Extensive camera movement heightened action; however, sometimes the swinging camera alienated the viewer. Spurts of black and white film, used to serve as imagination sequences of Avilla, also lent an interesting touch.

All of these pros and cons of this film add up to two facts: Internal Affairs provides a venue for seeing the performance of one of tomorrow's biggest stars and viewing some interesting, new film techniques. However, to see a great plot about a crooked system within a legal institution, save a couple bucks and rent The Days of the Condor.