Review: 21 Bridges

Chadwick Boseman plays a NYPD detective whose trigger-happy antics have aroused the suspicion of IA. Boseman is the lead investigator when a couple of robbers (Stephan James and Taylor Kitsch) kill some cops in the course of their attempt to grab someone else’s coke stash. J.K. Simmons is a pissed off police captain whose men were the victims in the robbery. Clearly seething with rage, he’s glad to have a cop reputed to have a ‘shoot first’ mentality when it comes to cop-killers, but nonetheless insists Boseman be partnered by one of his ‘guys’, a narcotics cop played by Sienna Miller (!). As Boseman has Manhattan shut down (including the 21 bridges of the film’s title) a manhunt begins. However, Boseman starts to suspect there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Keith David turns up briefly as a deputy police chief, Alexander Siddig plays a money launderer the thieves call upon.

 

Transparent plotting and a laughably miscast Sienna Miller aren’t enough to derail this 2019 cops-and-crooks thriller from director Brian Kirk (who comes from a TV directing background). However, there’s just enough here to give this one an extremely soft recommendation. A mixture of “16 Blocks” and “Run All Night”, that transparency does make the lead character - played very confidently by the late Chadwick Boseman – seem quite dense. However, Kirk gives the film a real sense of urgency, and the music score by Alex Belcher (“Extraction”, with Chris Hemsworth) and Henry Jackman (“Kingsman: The Secret Service”, “Kong: Skull Island”, “Extraction”) is damn good too. The action-packed opener with a cocaine robbery that gets incredibly messy is terrific too. I also think this represents the best work of Taylor Kitch’s career, with Stephan James also rock-solid. J.K. Simmons isn’t remotely subtle, but he is occasionally amusing as a very, very pissed off cop.

 

This is simple but somewhat effective action-thriller filmmaking here. Scripted by Scripted by Adam Mervis (his first significant credit) and Matthew Michael Carnahan (“Lions for Lambs”, the slightly underrated “World War Z”), there aren’t any surprises, and that would normally be a killer for this kind of cop action-thriller. However, the film works better as an action film, as it barely takes enough of a breather for its story flaws to ultimately matter too much. Although Sienna Miller stands out like a sore thumb as a supposedly tough Noo Yawk cop, the rest of the cast is terrific. Boseman in particular is damn well Denzel-like in confidence and presence here. It’s not a memorable film, but it narrowly gets over the line. Oh what might have been, both for the film and the tragically passed Boseman who could’ve ended up a really great actor if he’d been given a longer life and career.

 

Rating: B-