Street Kings
By Matthew Rodgers
David Ayer’s would be epic ode to Los Angeles belongs in another time, notably the eighties. Keanu Reeves as a leading man, cardboard cutout characters that use the occasional swig on a bottle to indicate character depth, and a bodycount that teeters on explicit to the point of a Schwarzenegger movie. So why is this flabby join-the-dots good cop, bad cop saga highly watchable machismo fun?
Veteran LAPD cop Tom Ludlow (A truly haggard looking Reeves) is a man on the edge, his wife has just died (Lethal Weapon – check) and he has just been implicated in the execution of his former partner, think Johnny Utah from Point Break had his life gone completely down the drain and you will have our protagonist. Now paired with a rookie, Diskant (Chris Evans – Fantastic Four) a move from any number of buddy cop movies, he must sidestep the attentions of a team jealous of the adulation he receives from Captain Wander (Forest Whitaker – The Last King of Scotland) and clear both reputation and conscience.
Training Day scribe and Harsh Times director Ayer certainly has an eye for the City of Angels and if he was aiming for comparisons with HEAT then a lukewarm script is certainly balanced by the stunning way in which this concrete jungle is framed. Like Michael Mann’s epic the cityscape is as much a character as the loosely drawn people, whether claustrophobically trapping an on foot assailant in a high-speed chase or being used as a blatant metaphor in the films final shot, the streets are most definitely alive.
If only as much adoration had been applied to what must have been a sizzling James Ellroy adapted screenplay, there are hints at something greater in the tradition of modern classic LA Confidential but as Ayer’s is no Curtis Hansen the twists and double indemnities get diluted in the flash and bang of gunfire and the most intrusive score of the year.
Acting honours certainly are mixed; Good Cops – Keanu is as expected, don’t imagine languid monologues, he does brooding monosyllabic better than most and it works nicely for the insular Ludlow. Fresh from the success of House, Hugh Lawrie also excels in his limited role as a rival police chief. Bad Cops – the curse of the Oscar statuette which compels recent award winners to choose lazy roles has struck down the great Whitaker with the recent Vantage Point and now this “recurring shouty speech” turn that makes Idi Amin a distant memory. Add to that the wasted Chris Evans who has been brought onboard to look good on the poster and not to ustilise his improving acting abilities.
In this fast-edit world of 24, Street Kings themes and set-pieces can look dated but are so pumped with testosterone that you can’t help but enjoy the “leave brain in foyer and buy popcorn” mentality of Keanu and Co’s corrupt cops, you just won’t remember much about them when the sun sets on the LA skyline.
