Movie Review - Street Kings

In order to satisfy my serious Keanu Reeves addiction, I went to see "Street Kings" even though it isn't really my type of movie. (Note to Keanu: Please stop making so many action movies!) There's plenty of hard core, James Ellroy L.A. edge here (he's one of the screen writers) with Keanu playing Tom Ludlow, an alcoholic, out of control cop who blows away the "bad guys" without reading them their Miranda rights. His boss Capt. Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker), a mover and shaker in the department with political aspirations, covers up Ludlow's unprofessional actions while trying to ride herd on his rough and ready group of cops (including Jay Mohr and John Corbett). It seems that every police officer in the City of Angels is above the law in this story, which isn't too surprising and may even be realistic, but it becomes tiresome as one layer of corruption after another is peeled away. Typical of its action genre, there's little in the way of character development. Ludlow struggles to handle the death of his wife two years earlier, drinks almost constantly and has a girlfriend who's a nurse (a throwaway role played well enough by Martha Higareda). A bitter feud with his ex-partner Det. Washington (Terry Crews) isn't ever sufficiently explained but becomes a major part of the action when a shootout in a convenience store leaves Ludlow as a suspect in contributing to Washington's death. Capt. Biggs from Internal Affairs (Hugh Laurie) begins questioning Ludlow about the shootout and things escalate for Wander's whole crew of renegade cops.

The cast is excellent, director David Ayers makes good use of the seedier side of L.A., the noir feel of the movie allows the somewhat traditional action sequences to become a bit more enjoyable than usual. Still, I was confused by some of the developments and never really got into the characters or action.

Things to love about this movie: Lots of edge with some of that excellent Ellroy story telling keeping things fun; good sense of the L.A. fringes
Things to hate about this movie: Way too many shoot outs; story gets a bit too complicated with the usual detailed explanation at the end
Pleasant surprises: Mesmerizing supporting role by rapper The Game and an excellent performance by Chris Evans as Det. Diskant; Keanu gets to play a rather nasty character
Unpleasant surprises: The script continually refers to Reeves as racist "white boy" although he clearly is part Asian; so much police corruption throughout the film causes the ending to lose most of its punch