Thursday, August 21, 2008

Street Kings - DVD Review

STREET KINGS (**) - Starring Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, Cedric the Entertainer, Jay Mohr, Terry Crews, Naomie Harris, Common, The Game, Martha Hirageda, Amaury Molasco and John Corbett.
Written by James Ellroy & Kurt Wimmer & Jamie Moss.
Directed by David Ayer.

There are some things Keanu Reeves is really good at, but there are other things where he is not. He is not good at Shakespeare, and he is not good at playing a dirty cop.

He plays Ludlow, a cop who shoots first and asks questions later. He's Dirty Harry. But he's Keanu Reeves, so how dirty can Harry be? This is a Mark Wahlberg type role.

He actually isn't my main problem. He's my second problem, but my main problem is that the writers couldn't see how predictable their story was. James Ellroy was the guy behind L.A. Confidential. Then again, co-writer Kurt Wimmer was the guy behind Ultraviolet, so when two very different worlds collide, you get something like this. In the middle. It actually reminded me a lot of Dark Blue, anotehr corrupt-cop movie, and James Ellroy wrote the story and David Ayer wrote the screenplay for that. So there it is.

I knew exactly where this movie was going ten minutes into it, and when that happens, I have to suspend my disbelief that none of the characters on screen can figure it out either. It was a bit strange to see all these comedians (Cedric, Jay Mohr, Terry Crews, etc.) in serious roles too.

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