Morgan Bell
Kynaston
REVIEW: Street Kings
September 26th 2008 16:43
Directed: David Ayer (Harsh Times)
Written: James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia), Kurt Wimmer (Sphere, Ultraviolet, The Recruit)
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evens, Jay Mohr, John Corbett
Allow me to appropriate a fantastic line from Jason's "Eagle Eye" film review on Salty Popcorn
So a director tries to send three films into a bar to get tipsy and have a threesome. The films are Training Day, The Departed, and A Few Good Men. He expects to breed a super-film hybrid taking the best elements out of each and showing us the perils of corruption in ways we have never seen before . . . and what do we get . . . a donkey!
Sorry Jason, I know you enjoyed this one so it is cruel and unusual of me to use your own analogy to mock it!
Maybe ill try another one? Do you remember the 80s comedy movie "Twins" with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito? Six geniuses contributed to a "sperm milkshake", Arnold was the product of their combined purity and strength while Danny was the "leftover crap" . . . now Danny wasnt really that crap, sure he wasnt as strong or intelligent as his superior twin brother but he had some great qualities, he wasnt a waste!
That kind of sums up what i think of Street Kings: not total crap, has a few redeeming qualities, but when compared with what it could have been is glaringly substandard. This film has the atmosphere of Training Day but none of the passion. It has some powerful "you cant handle the truth" type lines yet is absent of polarising ethics that invite you to think. It has a complex plot but is so cliched that it is somehow predictable. Theres nothing new here.
no really, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, do not read on if you have not seen it
(even though you will probably figure them out way before they unfold)
The thing that i really dont get, the fundamental flaw, is why every single cop in the movie was crooked! All of them are tampering with evidence, burying reports, bullying and intimidating others, lying, stealing, bribing, coercing and covering-up. Every last one of them in varying degrees. Being a little bit corrupt is like being a little bit pregnant, you either are or you arent. And everyone is! We have no "clean" cop as contrast, and with no clear contrast everything appears a little dull!
Keanu was crooked, his boss (Whittaker) was crooked, the newbie (Evans) was crooked, the murdered cop was crooked, all the co-workers were crooked (and as it turns out really nasty), the drug dealers all turn out to be crooked undercover cops, even the hard-arse internal affairs snitch (Laurie) ends up being crooked. So we start with a crooked cop who investigates a murder and finds out all of the other cops are crooked and then in the moments where he should be lamenting over the error of his ways and the slippery slope of corruption and cover-ups he instead hatches a plan to cover-up the cover-up! Seriously guys, what kind of character development was that?
Also, a smaller complaint, why did they give Jay Mohr that ridiculous moustache?
Written: James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia), Kurt Wimmer (Sphere, Ultraviolet, The Recruit)
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evens, Jay Mohr, John Corbett
Allow me to appropriate a fantastic line from Jason's "Eagle Eye" film review on Salty Popcorn
So a director tries to send three films into a bar to get tipsy and have a threesome. The films are Training Day, The Departed, and A Few Good Men. He expects to breed a super-film hybrid taking the best elements out of each and showing us the perils of corruption in ways we have never seen before . . . and what do we get . . . a donkey!
Sorry Jason, I know you enjoyed this one so it is cruel and unusual of me to use your own analogy to mock it!
Maybe ill try another one? Do you remember the 80s comedy movie "Twins" with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito? Six geniuses contributed to a "sperm milkshake", Arnold was the product of their combined purity and strength while Danny was the "leftover crap" . . . now Danny wasnt really that crap, sure he wasnt as strong or intelligent as his superior twin brother but he had some great qualities, he wasnt a waste!
That kind of sums up what i think of Street Kings: not total crap, has a few redeeming qualities, but when compared with what it could have been is glaringly substandard. This film has the atmosphere of Training Day but none of the passion. It has some powerful "you cant handle the truth" type lines yet is absent of polarising ethics that invite you to think. It has a complex plot but is so cliched that it is somehow predictable. Theres nothing new here.
**SPOILER ALERT**
no really, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, do not read on if you have not seen it
(even though you will probably figure them out way before they unfold)
The thing that i really dont get, the fundamental flaw, is why every single cop in the movie was crooked! All of them are tampering with evidence, burying reports, bullying and intimidating others, lying, stealing, bribing, coercing and covering-up. Every last one of them in varying degrees. Being a little bit corrupt is like being a little bit pregnant, you either are or you arent. And everyone is! We have no "clean" cop as contrast, and with no clear contrast everything appears a little dull!
Keanu was crooked, his boss (Whittaker) was crooked, the newbie (Evans) was crooked, the murdered cop was crooked, all the co-workers were crooked (and as it turns out really nasty), the drug dealers all turn out to be crooked undercover cops, even the hard-arse internal affairs snitch (Laurie) ends up being crooked. So we start with a crooked cop who investigates a murder and finds out all of the other cops are crooked and then in the moments where he should be lamenting over the error of his ways and the slippery slope of corruption and cover-ups he instead hatches a plan to cover-up the cover-up! Seriously guys, what kind of character development was that?
Also, a smaller complaint, why did they give Jay Mohr that ridiculous moustache?
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