Review for Brooklyn's Finest
March 11th 2010 22:43
This movie was interesting based on the selection of actors alone! There is Don Cheadle, Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, and Wesley Snipes. Now those of you who read my other blog, All Celebrity Bytes, will know that I am for the underdog. And you can't get any more underdog than Wesley Snipes! This was a great (albeit minor role) return to the big screen role and it is being touted as "Wesley Snipes reprising his New Jack City role as Nino Brown." Close, but no cigars. The movie is filmed very interestingly with the coverage of three New York police officers (You guessed it, Wesley is NOT one of them, and the title, I realized halfway through the movie is a sarcastic one, definitely!) that are consumed with their own lives instead of being involved with the specifics of their jobs. Don is deep undercover in the drug racket and we come to find out he owes his life to Wesley Snipes. So while he is trying to watch both of their backs, Don is also griping about how the streets are starting to get to him, how he wants his wife/life back, and wants a desk job. Ethan's character is an officer caught between a rock and a hard place, who has gone bad, and has resorted to killing drug dealers for their money or doing anything he can to get his hands on drug money. He is a Catholic father with many children at the time we meet him (my movie buddy and I joked that every home scene his kids kept multiplying, scene 1, one kid, scene 2, two kids..) and we learn that his pregnant wife is having TWINS! To make matters worse, the extremely cramped little house they live in is making his wife's asthma (due to mold) exacerbate. Richard's character has been on the force for about 20-30 years (I forget, hey, it was hard to keep up with the triple storyline!) and is about to retire in 7 days. He is so burnt out that upon rising for his shift he puts his revolver in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Can we say serious psychotherapy counseling? And this is who is protecting the streets? Alrighty then! Although this is an excellent fast paced movie that builds up layer upon layer until the climatic ending, I found the ending upsetting and it left me disappointed on two points: The outcome of the characters and the absolute ending. I will say that MY interpretation of the ending is: The Richard Gere character did not give a rat's patutti about his job, we saw him tell new officers "Don't be so gung-ho, take it slow and easy, a very non-chalant approach to officiating. The other two were playing too close to the edge/with fire, emotions ran really high and we all know how movies with men and high emotions and guns pan out (not good). It's like the director was saying "Pick and choose your battles, don't be a hot head in every situation, every situation doesn't require going from 0-60 emotionally and then you will possibly live to see another day. It is certainly worth checking out. Superb performances!
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