johnlink ranks STREET KINGS (2008)
I’m always up for a good R-Rated cop flick. Especially one with Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker. This is more grit than glamor, the kind of thing that was getting green-lit constantly after the success of THE DEPARTED.
I watched STREET KINGS (2008) on 9.15.10. It was my first viewing of the film. TRAILER HERE
This is one of those cop movies that pretends to be about a lot more than it is. It wants to be about racism and reverse racism, and the dangers of unchecked corruption. And it has moments about some of those things. But really, this is a movie about how evil cops are.
Cops, in this film, come in two kinds. Evil pretending to be Good and Good forced to be Evil by circumstances or lack of morality. There isn’t a single good cop in this movie. Really, there isn’t a single redeemable character in this movie. When, at the end, it seems like something is going that way, the film gets turned on its ear in the last minute and that goes away. EVERYONE (at least every male… there are no female officers in this) is able to be compromised.
The acting makes this movie very watchable. Fun performances, with a bunch of individual characters that all have their own motivation and arc. But the problem is that all these characters end up in one big film where they don’t have anyone desirable to be a foil. They are just different levels of evil.
Much of that can be blamed on the script, which has some nice sections of dialogue, but doesn’t give a story which is very likable. It’s one thing to be bleak, like THE DEPARTED or NARC, but there need to be moments of hope to balance it out. We just never get it here.
I’d watch this again, but I don’t think it is quite good enough to fall into a very good status. It’s merely a watchable and forgettable cop flick.
SCORES
FILM: 5; MOVIE: 7; ACTING: 6; WRITING: 4 (What is this?)
5+7+6+4+0=22
FINAL SCORE: 5.5
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