“Street Kings,” starring Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, and Hugh Laurie, provides a lot of action and suspense; however, there are too many flaws to make it a must see movie. Directed by David Ayer, who scripted “Training Day,” “Street Kings” walks the familiar ground of dirty cops. Tom Ludlow (Reeves) is a dirty cop, but not one who takes money from drug dealers. He is a cop who considers himself a ‘gun fighter,’ one who is judge, jury and executioner of bad guys. When the events of a shootout result in the scrutiny of Internal Affairs Captain Biggs (Laurie), Tom knows he’s got to be careful. Unfortunately, Tom’s former partner, now an IA informant, is killed by two gang members in a convenience store. Tom’s captain (Forest Whitaker) tells him to forget about it and move on, but Tom conducts his own investigation that leads him to more police corruption.
The strength of “Street Kings” is its investigation of the concept that it takes evil to fight evil and the characters that populate this movie are varying shades of gray. The greater weakness is that there are far too many holes in the plot that cannot be easily explained away. For example, Tom happens to be in the same convenience store when his ex-partner is killed and the fact that one of Tom’s bullets ends up in his ex-partner’s back is completely ignored. However, the greatest flaw is that the whole police force seems to be painted with the broad brush of corruption, especially when viewed in terms of the conclusion. Reeves, who has always been criticized for his lack of acting depth, is best served by action movies and “Street Kings” is no exception. Whitaker and Laurie provide adequate support although Tom’s love interest (Martha Higareda), so totally undeveloped, is superfluous.
If you’re not bothered by excessive violence and profanity in your movies and you don’t get into heavy discussions about the logic of the plot, “Street Kings” is for you. (4/10/08)
No comments:
Post a Comment