Street Kings is the latest in a long line of urban cop dramas that goes back through the Departed and LA Confidential to the Big Sleep and the great gangster movies of the thirties. This is territory where the pedigrees of the filmmakers and prestige of the films feels like a weight on new films coming out: how do you match up to John Huston or Martin Scorsese or to actors like Bogart, Jack Nicholson, Jimmy Cagney or even minor lights like Lawrence Tierney. The fragility of order and its corrupt enforcers have been portrayed again and again- most recently in American Gangster but also in films like the French Connection and On Dangerous Ground. This is unfair but this reviewer like many of those watching the movie will judge any film that navigates this territory by the standards of the past. When I saw that James Ellroy was involved in writing this, my mind went back to the superb LA Confidential, when I saw that it dealt with police corruption and crime, I started thinking about the Departed. You can always tell about a film's ambitions through reading its publicity material- and the material handed out at the screening I went to made it pretty clear that the makers consider this an important film. They tell us that its is about the 'complexities of law enforcement, power and corruption'. Well maybe, but the film didn't seem to quite get a hand on those themes.

I want to move on to how it discusses those themes a little later but first its worth considering why this film is a failure, its a bit of a mess. Part of the reason for this is that for the central part, the director cast Keanu Reeves. Mr Reeves is the male equivalent of Julia Roberts, he is a negation of any onscreen presence or magnetism, he fails to convey anything of subtlety and just blocks the moves he is told to do out on screen. A supporting caste of rappers in minor parts doesn't really help him here. There are some other main actors in other parts- Hugh Laurie is shamefully underused but lights up the screen whenever he is on it- this is not Forrest Whittaker's greatest performance but even so he has the charisma to perform the part of the police chief with aplomb if not with the kind of distinction we expect from him. The two women, Grace Garcia and Naomie Harris, do well with the little they are given. Reeves's sidekick is played by Chris Evans who again is ok. Apart from Laurie and Whittaker (who are only onscreen once together) that's a pretty paltry caste when you compare it to the people in LA Confidential which navigates similar territory- Spacey, Crowe, Bassinger, Devito et al beat this crew off the set- only two of them (Laurie and Whittaker) deserve mentioning in the same bracket.

If the film is let down by an absense of real acting talent, then its also let down by its story. The strength of LA Confidential was the way that the characters' motivations were displayed with complication- this is an idiot's version of that story. We have the brutal thug of a police officer- who to be honest often seems more of a thug than a police officer- we have the corrupt ethos of a squad that sits together etc but none of it really works. I didn't feel myself believing any of it. The plot twists and turns but instead of revealing new subtleties, its predictable and I hate to say this but it also feels like the film makers are reaching desperately for some plot twist to explain the last plot twist. At the end the resolution is too easy- I don't want to say what it is- but suffice to say everything is wrapped up without much explanation.

The film doesn't really have a consistent voice, its all over the place when it comes to what it wants to say about policing in LA. The main character uses casual violence, beats up witnesses, the police are portrayed as prostitute using scum who routinely rape women as part of their 'investigations' and yet ultimately, one of the leading abusers is vindicated because he only beats up 'suspects' (to be a suspect in this film means that you are guilty!) The potential for injustice here is never explored. Its picture of street LA is one of an anarchic zone, much like the picture in American History X, but the police don't seem to be really helping. Its a film that asks questions about the reality of loyalty- but again I felt that that was a mess- the idea that an ethic should trump loyalty was expressed by a cop shooting a corrupt man in cold blood, when he wasn't a threat: endorsing the law by committing an illegal act.
If the film has a message it is that if you break the law, society can do what it wants to you and the police can reinvent those events to portray themselves in the best light. I'm not sure that that is the message the film makers wanted to send nor am I sure that its a healthy message.

Directorally the film is ok- but tends towards the conventional. A shot of a man going into a house, is presaged by a shot of his arm carrying a gun- the cinematic equivalent of shouting 'look he is going to shoot' in a crowded theatre. Now everyone knows that cinematic language, but there aren't many films that are this routine in using it. There isn't a real style to the film- the film makers say that they strove to reflect reality- what they reflect is a mess. You don't come out of this humming a tune or thinking about a still, you come out with a series of flashing images in your mind. Police life isn't grimy, it isn't gory, it is a bit of a blancmange.

For a film that wants to shock us for the world of crime that we live within and the lives of those that stop and prevent crime, it underwhelms on many levels. It never rises above the tradition of which it forms a part and the acting is too limpid to make a contribution to that tradition. Few people will look to this film as one that innovates or contributes: it is an untidy mess of a movie, with a story that is all over the place, a cast that don't know what they are doing (with honourable exceptions, Hugh and Forrest) and not even a look to redeem it.

I suppose the ultimate condemnation is that of the two films, I preferred the Black Dahlia: at least that had style, this lacks style and substance.

Its still better than Rambo though!