Brooklyn's Finest

Brooklyn's Finest explores the underbelly of police work in some of the most unbecoming neighborhoods. Three police officers who have no connection to one another are going through their own personal crises, until they end up at the same place, at the wrong time.

Richard Gere rehashes his police character role albeit in less than flattering circumstances. This time he's a cop without illusions. He's completing his 22 years on the job and has no expectations about his service or the life awaiting him after retirement. Perhaps his crowning glory is his achievement after retirement.

Don Cheadle another officer is deeply embedded in the drug world. He's being asked to do more than he's prepared to do and eventually he loses his sense of identity. There are only gray lines in this film; everything is marred by malfeasance, violence and scandal.

Ethan Hawke is a man on a path to destruction. His wife is sickly and about to give birth to twins. The house is too small and he can't provide for his family's needs on a cop salary. He takes on more dangerous drug busts and eventually is consumed by his own corruption.

The film is high quality, albeit unrealistic. It glorifies the handgun and over-emphasizes several themes, but it does a good job at captivating viewers' attention

Brooklyn's Finest is expertly directed by the excellent Antoine Fequa (Training Day, Shooter, The Equalizer 1&2, Olympus Has Fallen) this guy is one of the greats of suspenseful action thriller Cinema. Here Fequa gives us a tough cop thriller about three cops on different paths but are all NYPD officers & will eventually cross paths.

The cast is excellent. We have the always excellent Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Assault on Precinct 13, Sinister, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead) & Hawke gives an excellent performance as Sal, a struggling family man who has many kids & a pregnant wife with twins on the way. Sal is a crooked cop, he kills drug dealers & steals their money but he gets way to caught up in it when he has a deadline to buy his families dream house. Truly an incredible performance as Sal does bad things for good reasons.

We also have the excellent Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda, Many Marvel films) as a deep undercover cop named Clarence "Tango" Butler, a guy who is in so deep that he's losing himself in his gangster role. Clarence wants out now but is being forced to bring down drugs lord Caz, played by the great Wesley Snipes!!! But Clarence is good friends with the guy & doesn't trust the police force he's working for. Cheadle is excellent of course.

Last is the veteran actor great Richard Gere as a loner, fed up with life & often cowardly & almost retired cop Eddie Dugan. Gere plays Eddie as a man that's seen it all & figures was it even worth it? He's a week away from retirement & is suicidal.

Gere is excellent & gives the film a strong backbone by having him in the cast. The four actors are excellent.

All paths will cross at some point but until then we follow each character as they go about their dangerous lives in a crime ridden New York City. There's a gritty realness to "Brooklyn's Finest" as we see a more realistic version of the police force with it's harshness on display. Also there's racial tension that is always there in America & of course crooked cops & gang bangers.

Truly a brilliant piece of filmmaking. A true New York City cop thriller that packs a mighty unexpected punch.

Gritty, profane, and extremely violent thriller centering around three disparate New York cops: a cynical twenty-year veteran playing out his final days until retirement while struggling to keep his sanity (Gere); a conflicted undercover torn between his commitment to the job and his loyalty to the streets (Cheadle); a desperate family man who has his morale put to the test while trying to provide a stable home for his wife and kids (Hawke); director Fuqua's attempt at a police morality tale is well-crafted, strongly acted, and sure to grab your attention with intense, in-your-face violent action, but it doesn't offer enough new insight to transcend the familiar, seen-it-all-before limitations of this genre. Hawke (reteaming with his Training Day director) stands out with an unexpectedly edgy performance. The violence—while expected for a film of this genre—is still tough to stomach at times. **½

Antoine Fuqua aims high within the limitations he has for Brooklyn's Finest. By that I mean the film is fairly low-budget, or at least middle of the road (my guess is twenty million), and it was shot on location in Brooklyn and places around. He also has a script that has its share of clichés and potential pitfalls for cinematic treatment. It's surprising how well the film comes off with the elements, and they are ALL familiar: the cop just nearing retirement (Gere), on his way out, who has to shepherd a rookie through his first days on the; a corrupted cop (redundant mayhap) that is scrounging for any money he can on raids (Hawke) needs it for a slightly noble cause, a new house for his growing family; a cop undercover (Cheadle) has to choose promotion or loyalty with a criminal takedown on the horizon.

Three very recognizable types, and the tropes are there, at least on paper. But where Fuqua sets himself apart, as he did to a good if not great extent on Training Day, is to imbue importance (not pretentious but just enough for serious effect) in the direction of scenes, and in casting. The actors take material that could be trite and unconvincing and even stale post-Lumet-cop-movie stuff and make it their own, compelling and heartfelt, and true to the extent that the genre allows. There's real tragedy felt with Hawke's character, albeit he may overact just a bit in some scenes, since this corrupt cop wouldn't be so bad if he could get what he needs ("I don't want God's forgiveness, I want his help," he says in confession), and likewise real conflict with Cheadle's undercover, who has been embedded too long in the trenches, and wants to help the criminal who once saved his life (Wesley Snipes fantastic in an older, slightly wiser version of his character in New Jack City).

And then there's Gere. One almost forgets Gere's successes when he's starring in romantic-comedy junk like... well, what's he been in recently for starters. But then one looks at Unfaithful, Days of Heaven, The Hoax, I'm Not There, among some others, and one sees Gere is an underrated presence, a guy who when given material to shine in does very well as an everyman, more than just a typical pretty star. With his role as the on-his-way-out cop, he gives one of his best performances, worn and weary, but strong and good as a cop whenever he can see fit, who at one point makes a mistake that he won't cop to (watch Gere when he's interrogated about his rookie's mishap on a convenience store scuffle and it's something of genius work). It's intense and believable, and even tender and sorrowful work, like when Gere's character is around a prostitute he's fallen for.

Back to Fuqua though - this is a filmmaker who knows what he's working in, and wants to transcend it. Perhaps his idol for this kind of production was Sidney Lumet with his cop films: make something dramatic and tragic, and never lose the grit, but add panache with the directing. He knows the conventions and has to stick to them, sometimes for weaker or just expected effect. But watching his style in that last reel, when all three stories that have been going back and forth (ocassionally intertwined) come together at one project building. There's a scene where Hawke is personally raiding a place. Watch the camera in this scene, where it stays put in one spot for seemingly a minute. It could almost be a Tarantino move, something self-conscious but purposeful for the action, the psychology of the emotion of the scene. His work with better material would be astonishing. As it is, it's just good, inventive film-making.

Very well made with that gritty feel to it that Antoine Fuqua is renowned for. A decent score by Marcelo Zarvos, interspersed with rap and other 'street' tunes sets the tone. All the performances were excellent; in particular Richard Gere as the world-weary Eddie, Don Cheadle as the street-wise Tango and Ethan Hawke as the up-tight Sal. Wesley Snipes did a great job too as Cal, as did Brían F. O'Byrne as Sal's partner, Ronnie Rosario. Also worthy of note were; Will Patton as Lt. Bill Hobarts, Michael Kenneth Williams as Red, Shannon Kane as Chantel and Ellen Barkin as Agent Smith. Oh, and look out for a nice little cameo from Vincent D'Onofrio as Carlo.

I must say that the critics must have had a bad day or something when they reviewed this one. I'm usually pretty much in agreement with them, but I think they missed a trick here. Yes, the three threads don't tie together in a neat bow but they're not supposed to; that's life, it doesn't always go the way you want it to (seldom does actually). The performances are great and there are some really superb visual moments too. I liked the plot, yes, maybe a little haphazard here and there, but not as bad as some would have you believe. For me, well worth a look… RECOMMENDED.

My Score 7.1/10

IMDb Score: 6.7/10 (based on 32,232 votes at the time of going to press).

MetaScore: 43/100: (Based on 33 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: 42/100 (based on 140 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 47/100 'Liked It' (based on 98,882 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).

You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.