Cops on cops!
Street Kings
By Menreet Kaur
Director: David Ayer
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Jay Mohr, John Corbett, Cedric the Entertainer, Terry Crews, Common, The Game
Official website: http://foxsearchlight.com/streetkings
Bad cop, no flaming donuts for you! It would have helped your case if your plots were a little thicker and your dialogues, well, more intriguing. Also, aren't you supposed to be all elusive and keeping me on the edge of my seat with your "hard-hitting" rampage on supposed suspects?
You'd either find Street Kings a sorely indulgent or painfully cliched cop-movie. It was a weak attempt at intertwining office politics, the underground drug world and adrenaline-powered action.
Naturally, LAPD's wonderboy, Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves), manages to escape every major gun-fight scene he was in despite the fact that it was always a one man shoot out versus a dozen of the bad guys. Maybe in a world where unicorns and fairies exist, I'd take this, but seriously, whatever happened to films depicting real scenarios?
And then there is Academy Award winner, Forest Whittaker, who seems like he hasn't really found a way out of his previous role from The Last King Of Scotland. He's still full on with the Ugandan accent and Idi Amin ruler-like facial expressions.
Thank god for the underdogs. The Game and Cedric the Entertainer became the saving grace of the show, providing the much needed comic relief in their cameo appearances.
Prima facie, Street Kings is all about how greed for power and money can cause the average law-abiding citizen to become manipulative, cold-hearted and downright iniquitous. Come end of the film, a certain revelation behind a concrete wall will leave you stupefied at just how unimportant the Almighty Dollar is and for the easily-inspired; that might even make you sort out your priorities.
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