Brooklyn's Finest (C- or 1.5/4 stars)
3 unacquainted cops who work in a notoriously violent & corrupt section of Brooklyn end up at the same fatal crime scene after going through very different career paths in 'Brooklyn's Finest', a grisly drama directed by Antoine Fuqua. The story covers 1 weeks, & revolves around these 3 NY police officers ...
Narcotics cop Sal (Ethan Hawke) is a devout Catholic who goes to confession regularly finds himself in deep doo-doo. With 2 sons, 2 daughters, & twins on the way, he needs to find a bigger house (& one, preferably, with no mold). His wife doesn't work. They can't pay their bills. And Sal's salary isn't cutting it. So with tremendous pressures on him, what does he do? Start killing bad guys & stealing drug $$ from drug busts, of course. Desperate, Sal starts making more bad decisions; culminating in a deadly climax which draws our 3 main characters together.
Tango (Don Cheadle) is sick of being an undercover cop; wanting a promotion, pronto. His latest mission (told to him by his superior, played by a hard-edged Ellen Barkin) is to bring down drug lord Caz Phillips (uh, welcome back Wesley Snipes). Problem is: he owes Caz his life from a prior incident & finds himself caught in a harrowing conflict btwn. friendship & duty. By the end, he recognizes he will be forced to decide; & understands that the repercussions will be horrible no matter the final decision ... betray Caz, or jeopardize his potential promotion & career.
And Eddie Dugan (Richard Gere) is a veteran cop facing retirement (at the end of the week) with the same 'who cares' attitudes that appears to have plagued him his whole life. Disenchanted, the only thing he cares about is getting through life unscathed, drinking booze, & being serviced by his regular prostitute friend (an intriguing Shannon Kane). He's not fulfilled; & when his new hotshot partner calls him a coward for his unwillingness (partly due to it being his last week) to take charge in a dangerous situation, it makes him feel even less of himself. By the aforementioned climax of the movie, he'll have to decide if committing suicide is his answer, or if he can be, for the 1st time in his life ... a hero.
'BF' follows the same type of formula as 2005's Crash; telling entwined stories of 3 characters that converge at the end. It's a tricky method to pull off. It's hard to give ample time to each storyline for proper development. Director Antoine Fuqua ratchets up the tension (within the script). He tries to do something 'new' with the entwined story method. Crash did it, wonderfully. But I can't say 'BF' did. In fact, the actual problem is more that it's ... average, arrhythmic (in structure), & cliched. The script made the plot points feel both familiar & artificial; all while being visually gritty. I mean, I like grittiness; & the performances, when not over-the-top strike a chord. But my gosh, I feel like I've seen this exact type of movie 20 times before, & many of them done better.
You know ... the grimy, rain-slickened setting, the dingy locales, the copious drugs, the cop talking to a priest in confession, the crazy violence, the New Yawk accents, the relentless profanity, the self-important slang-talk, the shady motives, the typical cop film standards, etc.. They're alllllll here. Gere is pretty good here as the cop looking for redemption. And yet, his story arc is probably the weakest; contrived & predictable (very). Don Cheadle is fine, here. I've seen him better. Shame - his story arc was the most interesting on paper. And how his character is handled during the climax stinks. As Sal, Ethan Hawke is solid as a man on the psychological edge. But Sal, as a character, is not very sympathetic. I always thought he could find another solution(s) to his surmountable issues. What happens to him is most tragic, but I wasn't as annoyed by it as the Cheadle denouement. All these cops act so unprofessionally; so it's hard to get behind them.
Overall, it arrested my attention enough, & it has its spurts, but 'Brooklyn's Finest' is not an easy watch, & it succumbs under the weight of its own crime cinema cliches & morbidity. And without the names: Gere, Cheadle, & Hawke in the film, it would be a complete waste of time.
Narcotics cop Sal (Ethan Hawke) is a devout Catholic who goes to confession regularly finds himself in deep doo-doo. With 2 sons, 2 daughters, & twins on the way, he needs to find a bigger house (& one, preferably, with no mold). His wife doesn't work. They can't pay their bills. And Sal's salary isn't cutting it. So with tremendous pressures on him, what does he do? Start killing bad guys & stealing drug $$ from drug busts, of course. Desperate, Sal starts making more bad decisions; culminating in a deadly climax which draws our 3 main characters together.
Tango (Don Cheadle) is sick of being an undercover cop; wanting a promotion, pronto. His latest mission (told to him by his superior, played by a hard-edged Ellen Barkin) is to bring down drug lord Caz Phillips (uh, welcome back Wesley Snipes). Problem is: he owes Caz his life from a prior incident & finds himself caught in a harrowing conflict btwn. friendship & duty. By the end, he recognizes he will be forced to decide; & understands that the repercussions will be horrible no matter the final decision ... betray Caz, or jeopardize his potential promotion & career.
And Eddie Dugan (Richard Gere) is a veteran cop facing retirement (at the end of the week) with the same 'who cares' attitudes that appears to have plagued him his whole life. Disenchanted, the only thing he cares about is getting through life unscathed, drinking booze, & being serviced by his regular prostitute friend (an intriguing Shannon Kane). He's not fulfilled; & when his new hotshot partner calls him a coward for his unwillingness (partly due to it being his last week) to take charge in a dangerous situation, it makes him feel even less of himself. By the aforementioned climax of the movie, he'll have to decide if committing suicide is his answer, or if he can be, for the 1st time in his life ... a hero.
'BF' follows the same type of formula as 2005's Crash; telling entwined stories of 3 characters that converge at the end. It's a tricky method to pull off. It's hard to give ample time to each storyline for proper development. Director Antoine Fuqua ratchets up the tension (within the script). He tries to do something 'new' with the entwined story method. Crash did it, wonderfully. But I can't say 'BF' did. In fact, the actual problem is more that it's ... average, arrhythmic (in structure), & cliched. The script made the plot points feel both familiar & artificial; all while being visually gritty. I mean, I like grittiness; & the performances, when not over-the-top strike a chord. But my gosh, I feel like I've seen this exact type of movie 20 times before, & many of them done better.
You know ... the grimy, rain-slickened setting, the dingy locales, the copious drugs, the cop talking to a priest in confession, the crazy violence, the New Yawk accents, the relentless profanity, the self-important slang-talk, the shady motives, the typical cop film standards, etc.. They're alllllll here. Gere is pretty good here as the cop looking for redemption. And yet, his story arc is probably the weakest; contrived & predictable (very). Don Cheadle is fine, here. I've seen him better. Shame - his story arc was the most interesting on paper. And how his character is handled during the climax stinks. As Sal, Ethan Hawke is solid as a man on the psychological edge. But Sal, as a character, is not very sympathetic. I always thought he could find another solution(s) to his surmountable issues. What happens to him is most tragic, but I wasn't as annoyed by it as the Cheadle denouement. All these cops act so unprofessionally; so it's hard to get behind them.
Overall, it arrested my attention enough, & it has its spurts, but 'Brooklyn's Finest' is not an easy watch, & it succumbs under the weight of its own crime cinema cliches & morbidity. And without the names: Gere, Cheadle, & Hawke in the film, it would be a complete waste of time.