Street Kings
Part-written by the guy behind LA Confidential and directed by the bloke who did Training Day, Street Kings is pretty much a straight cross between the two. Keanu Reeves plays a borderline vigilante copper trying to investigate the murder of a dead colleague off the record and finding himself warned off and obstructed at every turn, usually by his high-powered captain, Forest Whitaker. He beats and shoots his way inexorably towards the truth, while lurking in the wings is Hugh Laurie (definitely more House than Blackadder on this occasion) as a treacherous Internal Affairs man intent on nailing Reeves and his team.
It's a twisty tale of po-po politics (see, Itchy can speak street too), though the pedigree of the film's creators means you've more or less sussed where it's going inside of the first half hour. In fact, the film's parentage is it's biggest problem. Forest Whitaker's swaggering, amoral boss man is barely a skip and a jump from Denzel Washington in Training Day, while Reeves as Tom Ludlow is essentially Bud White from LA Confidential plus fifteen years.
Funnily enough though, it's Reeves who carries the film. For someone who has in the past played second fiddle to charisma powerhouses like Larry Fishburne and Patrick Swayze, you might think he was onto a loser playing alongside ol' droop-eye Whitaker. Yet Keanu holds his own, and manages to bring a lot of depth to what's actually quite a simple character. He looks old and ragged, especially when you put him next to his fresh-faced sometime sidekick, Chris Evans (no, the guy out of Sunshine...), and his attitude of habitual and assured brutality is cut with a sad, self-destructive streak.
Brutality, of course, there's plenty of. And my, is it good. They've jacked up the sound mix so the guns go off like cannons and even punches sound like those faintly sickening Ricky Hatton body shots. Ludlow is all for improvisation in combat, and there are pleasing sequences involving a fridge, a phone book and some razor wire. The makeup artists too are uncompromising, and if the scary, tattooed gang members that populate the film don't give you nightmares then there are some nasty gunshot wounds to the face that will have you waking up in a cold sweat.
Life in the Fuzz, it would seem, is anything but warm and fuzzy.
Street Kings is out from 18th April
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