Brooklyn's Finest

Netflix has a recommended genre called something like "gritty-visceral-visually stunning-police prodedural-crime movies." I have a section of movies on my shelf dedicated to cop movies. Brooklyn's Finest knows all about those other movies and goes to great lengths to prove it. The actors are all veterans from memorable crooked-cop flicks--Richard Gere in Internal Affairs, Ethan Hawke teamed up with Fuqua for Training Day, and Don Cheadle starred in the epic international cop movie Traffic. Just their presence adds an inter-textual to other movies that wouldn't exist with other actors in the leads.

The three cops have all given their lives to the job in one way or another, which has forced them down three very different paths of corruption. Sal (Ethan Hawke) risks his life daily for the Brooklyn PD strike team but hasn't seen a raise in four years. He lives in a house that is too small for his family. It has mold which is killing his asthmatic and inconveniently pregnant--with twins--wife. He begins robbing criminals and crime scenes to pay for a new house. He rather quickly justifies murder. Eddie Dugan (Richard Gere) is--sigh--an aging cop near retirement, burnt out on the job he's done for too long and turns a blind eye to the crime that surrounds him. His story is by far the least interesting of the three. It insists on hitting every cliched beat on the way to its inevitable conclusion. In fact, it was so formulaic I wonder if it was intentionally familiar to provide a tired story for a tired character, or to ground the other two stories in a tried-and-true cop movie. Almost all of the good material in the movie comes from the Tango (Don Cheadle) storyline. He's an undercover cop that has developed a strong compassion for his criminal colleagues--in particular, his prison buddy Casanova Phillips (Wesley Snipes). Snipes and Cheadle provide almost all the valuable scenes. They are both clever, caring, and realistic. They obviously care for each other and have a recognizable prison bond that is just enough out of reach for full audience comprehension. I usually associate Snipes with tough guys and Cheadle with good guy roles, but I sometimes forget how good they both can be in playing against typecasting. (I'm pretty sure Cheadle's range is limitless).

A few notable appearances character actors sprinkle the movie. Will Patton and Ellen Barkin sit across from Don Cheadle and tell him things he doesn't want to hear. Patton is always a good addition, no matter what. Ellen Barkin was one character too many. Vincent D'Onofrio has an entertaining cameo. Bryan O'Byrne, from Showtime's Brotherhood, is Ethan Hawke's loyal and undeserved friend on the force who serves as his conscience. Most of the supporting characters make this movie cop world more interesting and make it feel populated with even more characters with their own stories and motives that go on just outside the edges of the screen.

As with most other Anton Fuqua films, the dialogue is cliched. In this film, it's also uneven. The quality of the writing is negotiated between the three storylines through a tug of war. Fortunately, Fuqua is a masterful director. We are never lost or confused about what has transpired. Because of a combination of good acting and Fuqua's confident hand behind the camera, we always know what is going on in the minds of the characters. Their actions may be misguided, but they make sense. We may cringe at some rotten dialogue, but least we aren't scratching our heads or giving up out of boredom.

I would have preferred a little less melodrama in the Ethan Hawke story, a lot more originality in the Richard Gere story, and in the final storyline, more Don Cheadle with Wesley Snipes and zero Ellen Barkin. I was half-entertained and half-disappointed in the final product. If you are in the mood for a corrupt cop movie, you can do worse than Brooklyn's Finest, but you could also do a lot better.