Review: Street Kings

Troubled, alcoholic, widowed, and possibly racist (and possibly borderline stupid) LA cop Keanu Reeves has his somewhat destructive (or self-destructive) behaviour constantly protected by his bombastic boss Forest Whitaker. Whitaker has a team of law-bending officers to be judge, jury, and executioner. The end- saving the day, killing the baddies- supposedly justifying the means. When he hears that former partner Terry Crews has been talking to Infernal Affairs (chiefly the aggressively nosy Hugh Laurie, who doesn’t much like Reeves or his cohorts), he follows the guy to a convenience store to scare him into shutting up. But just as Reeves (who isn’t exactly a dirty cop, so much as a violent, vigilante-style cop) is about to act, a couple of masked burglars storm into the store, and blast away at Crews with machine guns, every convenience store robbers weapon of choice. At one point, Reeves accidentally hits Crews with one of his bullets amidst the chaos. Sensing a shit-storm with Reeves’ already questionable reputation, Whitaker and fellow officers (including Jay Mohr and John Corbett as two other law-bending officers) are quick to cover the whole thing up, with Reeves apparently arriving on the scene after the shooting. But although Reeves hated his supposedly do-gooder ex-partner, and is no saint, he just doesn’t feel right about covering up a murder...‘coz the real murderers are still at large, after all! Chris Evans plays a young homicide detective who reluctantly listens to Reeves’ side of things and joins him in the investigation. ‘Cedric the Entertainer’ Kyles turns up as a small-time dealer.

A somewhat embarrassing, aggressively overblown 2008 cop flick from the team of director David Ayer (writer of the similarly tired, overbaked “Training Day”, and the much better “Dark Blue”) and writers James Ellroy (the brilliant “L.A. Confidential” and the horrible “Black Dahlia”, he also provided the story for “Dark Blue”), debutant Jamie Moss, and Kurt Wimmer (writer-director of the quite underrated “Equilibrium”). It never gets off the ground, thanks to a script so stupid, clichéd, and utterly transparent that it joins “Twisted” as one of the few films with final twists so unbelievably obvious, that I picked it before the movie even started. If you can’t work it out from the trailer, a certain someone’s behaviour in their opening scene practically screams ‘I’M A BADDIE! ME! ME! OVER HERE!’. But the transparency of the plot is only but one problem. It’s also not selling us anything new, and it is presenting it all in such a massively over-the-top manner, with a horridly unrestrained Whitaker giving one of the all-time worst performances by an Oscar winner. He’s a fine actor who is capable of being either a powerhouse or a big softie, but Ayer seems either incapable or unwilling to rein the actor in, and allows Whitaker to beat the living shit out of the scenery and set the scattered remains on fire. If you thought his appearing in “Battlefield Earth” was embarrassing, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Whitaker must take a lot of the blame himself here, he must know he’s overdoing it here, surely. Hell, I thought I could hear Nicolas Cage in the background yelling ‘Dude, don’t overdo it!’. Maybe Laurence Fishburne might’ve been a better choice. Reeves, meanwhile, gives a pretty uninteresting performance of a character we’ve seen way too many times already. His inadequacy in the lead makes one appreciate Kurt Russell, Ray Liotta, and Al Pacino all the more. Cedric the Entertainer stands out like a sore thumb in a serious role that the late Bernie Mac or Ice-T would’ve nailed. Hugh Laurie, Dr. House himself, pretty much plays House with a badge, but I don’t have too much of a problem with people stuck in roles trading on a pre-existing persona. Being typecast never seemed to bother Clint Eastwood or John Wayne, and Laurie’s work is the only one (aside from perhaps Mohr, in a role he could play sleepwalking) of any positive note.

The whole script is full of material and dialogue recycled from every dirty cop story you’ve ever seen, including one character actually protesting; ‘I ain’t a fuckin’ snitch, man!’. That sort of line went out of fashion when “Starsky & Hutch” were still on TV. The film also has the most ridiculously high body count I’ve seen in a police corruption film- Um, dude...where are you gonna get the evidence from if you keep, y’know, offing people? But the whole damn film is ridiculous, unoriginal, and boring as hell. Maybe “Training Day” wasn’t so bad after all, and the original “Point Break” looks more and more like a masterpiece with every day. Hideous Graeme Revell (“Freddy vs. Jason”) score telegraphs everything with sledge-hammer subtlety. Astonishingly bad, especially the hideous final moments.

Rating: D+