Street Kings

Rating R Formats DVD Genre suspense Starring Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie Directed by David Ayer Publisher 20th Century Fox

In an age where many action films have evolved into smart thrillers such as The Bourne Ultimatum and The Dark Knight, few movies want to go back to the basics.  Street Kings is an unfairly underrated film because it avoids complications and delivers the entertainment.  A cop drama set in Los Angeles, Street Kings pulls out all the stops to bring back the ambience of Chinatown, although Street Kings offers performances which are mediocre at best.  Shocking murder scenes, crooked cops, twists and betrayal lie around every corner in this predictable, yet enjoyable film.

Keanu Reeves plays Tom Ludlow, a tough cop who is questioned in the murder of a fellow officer.  Suddenly his life is plagued by being forced into moral-questioning decisions to cover up what he didn’t do.  When he takes matters into his own hands to weed out the culprits, he discovers a shocking truth as to who is pulling everyone’s strings.  It’s a simple formula that has been done before, but isn’t necessary a bad thing.    It’s a good movie to enjoy popcorn to and enjoy watching the LAPD being met with the racist card every five seconds.  This film is stereotypical of the LAPD, but it makes for some great scenes.  In particular, there’s funny montage where Ludlow is at the station’s customer service desk receiving complaints, all of them about racial police brutality.  Sometimes simpler is better.

Unfortunately, great acting doesn’t always come with a great idea.  Reeves plays his role exactly like he did in Speed.  He was nothing more than a hothead who likes to yell every once in a while.  His facial expression never changed much, being nothing more than a deer in the headlights.  Forest Whitaker, despite being an Oscar winner, didn’t bring much to the mix because he never knew when to tone it down.  His character in this film was complex, but his performance was one-dimensional. His performance was exaggerated, not taking the opportunity to use some much needed subtleties.  Much like Reeves, Hugh Laurie was stuck playing another character.  When he ditches his English accent for an American one, he becomes Doctor House.  His slow speech pattern and two-faced undertones are identical to his television persona, it was like some spin-off where House was fired and got another job working for the police.

Director David Ayers did a great job of capturing the life of Los Angeles in the struggle of the cops versus minorities living with criminals.  The sense of us versus them is strong throughout the entire film, with good reasons as to why both sides feel that way.  The lighting also creates a nice ambience to the hostile, yet beautiful night life.  While Ayers was void of the expensive camera used to capture LA’s lights in Collateral, he did great with what he had.

If you’re in the mood to watch a movie that isn’t philosophically heavy but won’t numb your mind, Street Kings is just for you.  Even if the acting isn’t up to par with most thrillers, the story and characters are interesting enough where you’ll want to sit around and see what happens.  You’ll probably guess what happens in the end, but the journey getting there is a fun one.