Street Kings

Year: 2008
Director: David Ayer
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, Terry Crews, Naomie Harris


Movies about dirty cops can be interesting if done right. The Negotiator remains my all time favourite cop thriller, while most people would say Training Day was awesome. Street Kings on the other hand, doesn't quite live up to these two.

First, the plot. Keanu Reeves stars as Detective Tom Ludlow, a veteran cop with the LAPD's Vice Squad. He's good at getting the job done, even if he has to break the law to nail the bad guys. To his superior, Capt Jack Wander (Whitaker), he is the golden boy of his squad. Wander uses his influence to protect Ludlow and give him the reins to do his job.

However, Ludlow isn't a happy man. His wife has passed on, he has a drinking problem and now he has another mess. He finds out that his former partner Terrence Washington (Crews) has been giving up information about him to Internal Affairs. Wander warns him to stay cool, but Ludlow decides to do something about it. He goes to confront Washington at a grocery store, but suddenly two gangbangers walk in with machine guns and kill Washington right in front of him before fleeing.

Ludlow is devastated over the incident, but now he has bigger problems. The fact that he was there makes him a suspect to the murder. Internal Affairs chief Capt James Biggs (Laurie) begins investigating Ludlow as Wander does his best to cover up for him. But Ludlow refuses to back down and begins poking around on his own. He teams up with the cop assigned to Washington's murder, Detective Diskant (Evans) and start combing the streets looking for his killers.

David Ayer is the guy who wrote Training Day, so you'd want to see some equal measure of quality here . Unfortunately, no. Plotwise, it's just too damn predictable. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who's the real bad guy in the film within the first half of viewing. The authenticity of the sets and language used is good, but not enough to make it interesting. It gets dull after a while when you realise you're actually smarter than the lead character.

Speaking of which, I gotta hand it to Reeves for pulling off a worthy performance this time around. He's believable enough as the rogue cop trying to do the right thing, much better than playing a messiah or a supernatural hunter. Whitaker is a little over the top here, but he's all right. It's an about turn from his role in The Shield. Laurie isn't so far removed from Dr House in his performance here, but still manages to make his scenes memorable.

I watched The Shield a lot, and honestly that show is way better than Street Kings. It's more unpredictable and the cops are characters you can learn to love or hate. In this film, you couldn't be bothered with the characters after a while.

While Street Kings is in no way bad, it's not very good either. (3.5/5)