Ask the Bartender
A classic set-piece scene used occasionally in Law & Order, and in every other cop show you can think of, is the “Find Out What The Bartender Knows” scene. It is good-old shoe-leather detective work in what is, more-or-less, a den of iniquity.
It’s a natural, of course, and so it verges on the cliché, but it need not be trite. If written and portrayed naturally and honestly it can walk that line between the hackneyed and the parody without falling into either. I think this one does so nicely because it is well written, and because the casting of the bartender and his portrayal are so authentic.
The detectives have a somber, steely tone because that very morning four cops had been gunned down in an ambush. The bartender recognizes the suspect in the photograph and offers important clues in his recollection of the shady doings on a recent evening.
