Street Kings

Review by Zachary Keith Parker

    While watching Street Kings with a group of other men, you're likely to realize why so many action films revolve around the police in the line of duty. Watching a detective blow a  crater in a suspect's head just naturally excites the male viewer with lofty, not to mention naïve, aspirations and to testosterone-loaded exclamations.

    Telling a story about a good cop who brutally exacts justice on the guilty becomes quite easily justifiable in the average viewer's mind compared to a movie where the hero acts the same with way without any affiliation with the law and thereby suffers (Godfather trilogy).

    It's an opportunity for actors to wave imitation weapons around and burst corn syrup packets in synchrony with frenzied body gyrations. Man down. The audience cheers the hero and opens a six pack.

    Heroes within the law force are director David Ayer's trademark characters with writing credits to films like Training Day, S.W.A.T., and a writing/directing credit to the unwatchable Harsh Times. In Street Kings, the hero is Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves), who builds a city-wide reputation as a gunfighter officer, entering suspect hideouts without any backup and obliterating all of theirs.

    While Ludlow's unit, including Captain Wander (Forest Whitaker), continues to cover up for Ludlow's less than legal procedures, the Internal Affairs officer, James Biggs (Hugh Laurie), has suspicions about Ludlow in one hand and an offer to help him in the other. Told by Wander to avoid Biggs after learning that Ludlow's old partner, Washington (Terry Crews), has been “snitching” to Biggs for quite some time.

    All of this Internal Affairs business allows Ayer to create an even further emotional distance between gang bangers and a blood thirsty Ludlow by contrasting him with corrupt police officers. As Ludlow enlists the help of the honest Det. Paul Diskant (Chris Evans), they begin to simultaneously uncover the mystery behind a fellow officer's death and the level of corruption in the department.

    Ludlow no longer becomes an officer with an attitude problem but a necessary evil, righteous in intention and brutal in execution. From the beginning, Wander, Ludlow, and company echo hackneyed phrases like, “There is no good or evil,” as justification for the police unit's dishonest but supposedly just practices. 

    In the end (not response), Ayer reaches for the moral high ground, backpacking honesty and integrity, but due to the fluffy nature of the flick, he climbs to the top and looks out from a messy highchair.

    It's not intently subversive, but an immature bullet opera with a weak moralist singing weakly from behind the curtain. Given Ayer's previous movies, it's tempting to think that he has the same quick-tempered, violent police officer in mind when he begins to write all of his stories. This character (and the movies subbing as mere backdrops) is getting old and presently Christ-less.

    Reeves' character, a Det. Vic Mackey wannabe, may not surprise most viewers, but Keanu Reeves' portrayal doesn't openly strike you as “woah” bad either.

    Like his character in Constantine, I began to think that perhaps playing a rugged, impellent hero suited his acting skills better. However, the more lines he spoke, the more my initial reaction diminished, the more I realized it was his detached I-don't-give-a-red-cent stare that makes what little of a performance he gives, similar but not as good as his performance in A Scanner Darkly.

                                                        Nevertheless, the written dialogue in the film is already more-than-laughable, with lines like “Wander. Talk to me” or “Dude, cops are like weeds. You pull one out, and two more f---ing grow back.” At the same time, there are few priceless lines of dialogue, mostly contained in the first ten minutes of the film as well as a few gems scattered much more sporadically than the somewhat well-controlled action sequences.

    The scene pacing and the occasional action-loaded fight keeps the could-have-been-adapted-from-a-CSI-episode story moving quick enough to prevent anyone from thinking about the film's errors for too long. It's not a painfully flawed movie, but a low-density diversion that's entertaining and equally forgettable.

    With film classics like L.A. Confidential, the brutal officer/honorable detective team investigating police corruption is a story too familiar nowadays. Why do studios continue to make movies like Street Kings? Storytelling talents are dwindling along with the amount of original movie premises that don't include police, gangs, firefighters, hospitals, courtrooms, etc.

    However, studios know men want DVDs laden with plenty of testosterone stimulation, quick editing, and a new release label so they don't have to stimulate their other muscles and search the other video store shelves for a well-crafted film, police drama or not.