Street Kings starring Keanu Reeves

http://afk2pee.com/blog/?p=740



Starring:

Keanu Reeves
Forest Whitaker
Hugh Laurie
Chris Evans
Cedric the Entertainer

Another cop cop movie starring a once upon a time A lister. Not exactly mainstream or PG13. Released early 2008, Street Kings came and went with little fanfare. Honestly, I don’t know why. This movie was amazing.

[INDENT]Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) is a disillusioned L.A. Police Officer, rarely playing by the rules and haunted by the death of his wife. All of the cops in Ludlow’s unit, including their captain, Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker), bend and break the rules of conduct on a regular basis. Their intention is often to deal with crime in a manner that they perceive to be more efficient, which leads them to routinely lie, falsify reports and manipulate evidence to cover up for their wrong-doings.

[/INDENT] Another Departed, ‘The Shield’…you name it, it’s been done or being done as I type this. However, this type of movie tucked nicely under Keanu Reeves does speak volumes for the actor. As with a lot of movies in this genre, the hero is pretty fucked up. In this case, Ludlow is a functioning alcoholic who drinks airline sized vodka bottles by the dozen, first thing in the morning. His wife is dead. His nurse girlfriend fixes his wounds, and he is constantly breaking every law in the book, in the name of the book. Till one day, Detective Ludlow gets a conscience.

There’s a rat in the precinct and the death of said rat in the presence of Detective Ludlow becomes a problem. Especially when the rat was his ex-partner trying to go good and redeem himself, making him a pariah within the precinct.

The movie is predictable in the sense that you see Detective Ludlow trying to do the right thing in every way but the right way and in the process, puts another young detective in harms way (played by Chris Evans of Fantastic Four). The transformation of Detective Ludlow from alcoholic to do gooder is confusing at first, with him manipulating evidence to cover a guilty act only to uncover much, much more but the end is redeeming, to say the least.

Hugh Laurie stars as Captain James Biggs who’s watching Ludlow and his team which is run by Forest Whitaker’s character, Captain Jack Wander. Everyone is watching Ludlow and everyone is out to either kill him, exonerate him or frame him. It’s a pretty damn good movie, if only for the last fifteen minutes and worth renting. If you enjoy corrupt cop shows like ‘The Shield’ or ‘Sons of Anarchy’, you’ll enjoy this.