Going into Brooklyn's Finest I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew it was from "the director of Training Day", which I've never seen but realize to be a notable film, and had a pretty solid cast. I knew it was about cops. I knew these cops were of Brooklyn, New York City, NY. That's about it.
What I expected was a tragic drama about the ups and downs of being a cop in Brooklyn, and to some degree I got that. Ultimately what I got though, was disappointment. A huge steaming pile of it.
The movie starts off strong with Ethan Hawke chatting it up in a parked car next to a cemetery with an unnamed fat man about how he got a "get out of jail free" card on a DUI offense on account of "Righter and Wronger". It sets the tone and theme of the whole film and ends with an unexpected gunshot. Hawke grabs a bloody bag of money sitting on the fat man's lap and runs off.
It's a good start, but Finest quickly falls flat on its face. Somewhere between learning about Hawke's character's seemingly soap operatic myriad of problems and watching Richard Gere get a blowjob I lost interest in the story and characters and became completely obsessed with wondering how this screenplay actually got produced. Was it a chain of sexual favors? Did someone made a call to help their nephew out? Or is everyone at the associated studios just on meth?
Okay, that's a bit harsh. Finest isn't all that bad. It's strength's lie in the stellar performances from Gere, Hawke, Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes, and the rest of the cast. Much of the film is presented through dialogue between the characters, usually involving some kind of spiel about good and evil, right and wrong, and all that. At times it gets a little preachy, but for the most part it works. Just when things seem to be getting a little too over-saturated with characters hopping up on the soap box, we get a nice break of action where a swat team will bust a drug dealer's hideout or Richard Gere will facepalm after one of his hot-shot rookie partners blows his first day on the job.
Brooklyn's Finest seems like an easy enough film to make. You have three main characters, each dealing with their own struggle of good and evil. They're all within the same precinct and are assigned to closely related problems. Towards the climax of the movie, each makes a drastic decision that will force them to act in the name of right or wrong. You can almost envision the Departed-esque ending where everyone collides and only one man will be left standing. Yet somehow the film never really comes together.
Even though our three protagonists are all on the same street, we don't get the kind of connection that brings their respective stories full circle into a cohesive whole. Instead it ends with a more indecisive and seemingly rushed conclusion. There are subtleties that allow the audience to tie things up in their own minds, but looking at the screen, things feel unfinished, unresolved, and empty - and that's not the good kind of unresolved that leaves you wanting more. No, rather it's the kind that leaves you saying "hey! what the hell just happened to the movie I've been sitting through for the past two hours?!"
Brooklyn's Finest isn't a total loss. It's a decent drama carried through by strong acting and great tension between the characters. It's flawed in that it seems to be dragging its feet the whole way through. Throughout the first hour and a half it's easy to tell that there's some grand scheme; some hidden architecture within each event, line, and subtle movement of Cheadle's eyes in an intense close up. You can almost feel the three loosely related storyline driving faster and faster towards each other. However things never really come together and I left that theater feeling unrewarded for the time and money I'd spent there.
While Finest may not be a complete waste of time, there is a reason it was released right after February ("where films go to die"), and a reason the cast had to be flooded with stars, and those reasons become very apparent about twenty minutes into the film.
2.5/5
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Now I hope to do more reviews soon on more movies, music, events, games, whatever. Who knows, maybe I'll actually work up to initiative to make actual pictures and associated values for my rating system instead of just a "2.5/5". It is rather boring don't you think? But what to use? I suppose I could just use stars, but that seems a bit bland. Maybe chairs? I could say "Simply Stunning! Four out of Five chairs!" That sounds catchy. What do you think, reader(s)?
Also plan to beef up blog a bit. Add some fancy HTML shit and whatnot. Maybe more widgets. Don't get too excited, I did say MAYBE.
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