Street Kings

Directed By: David Ayer

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans

Synopsis:

In Street Kings, Detective Tom Ludlow is part of a maverick police squad led by Captain Jack Wander (Whitaker). Strung out and hitting the bottle since the death of his wife, Tom is furious when he discovers his old partner, Sergeant Washington, is going to testify against him at an Internal Affairs hearing. But when Washington is gunned down by gangbangers in a grocery store, Tom finds himself implicated. Now he must question everything he knew about the police force in order to survive.

Review:

What if F - B - I - Agent Johnny Utah (from Point Break) had joined the LA Police Department? And what if he ended up in a maverick squad not unlike "The Shield"? You might end up with this movie...

The opening sequence sets the tone for the movie - Tom bursts in on a Korean gang holding two 14 year-olds captive. He kills them all then furnishes the crimescene with extra bullet holes and some drugs to make it look like a more legitimate scenario. All under the approving eye of his boss.

Keanu here plays the grizzled cop-on-the-edge rather well and his delivery suits the been-there, seen it all feel of the character; his puzzled looks belie a man in too deep and trying to figure out whats going on and how to get from under it.

The movie follows Tom as he tries to find out why his ex-partner was gunned down and why no one is willing to find the suspects who killed him. During his investigation he teams up with the straight laced Detective Paul Diskant (Evans) who is leading the official investigation into the shooting.

On top of this Tom is hounded by Captain James Biggs played by Hugh Laurie, who basically uses the same mannerisms and speech patterns as House, minus the cane. Some might call it lazy, but hey, it works.

There are some neat twists and turns in the plot and some silly hard-boiled dialogue which comes down to too many alpha-males in the room. The violence is pretty extreme and unflinching. Take the death of Washington for example. He's not just shot, he's turned to mush under the unrelenting spray of bullets from two Uzis! Overall this sits nicely between Dark Blue and Training Day - not surprising since director David Ayer wrote both of those.

Verdict:

Lots of mean violence help perk up this LA Noir tale.

6 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)