Director Sidney Lumet and the New York legal system seem to go together like ham and eggs, and in one way or another Lumet has been periodically remaking and refining his own Serpico, about police corruption, over the past quarter of a century, in pictures like Prince of the City and Q & A. Night Falls on Manhattan, which he adapted from Robert Daley’s novel Tainted Evidence, may well be his best effort yet in this direction. Even if Andy Garcia as an honest rookie cop turned DA is no Al Pacino, the overall New York ambience and the street-smart grasp of the way this world operates keep this movie potent throughout. And some of the performancesespecially by Ron Leibman and James Gandolfinivirtually knock you out of your seat. With Ian Holm, Lena Olin, Richard Dreyfuss, and Shiek Mahmud-Bey. (JR)