Street Kings

Violent to a fault, preposterous, melodramatic, riddled with genre clichés and stupid as a stone, David Ayer’s Street Kings is nonetheless fairly compelling entertainment—while it’s on-screen. Five minutes after the fact, you’re apt to realize that it’s simply not very good, and all its myriad idiocies will stand out in sharp relief. But while it’s going, it’s at least watchable junk.

It should also be noted that—taken in conjunction with his performances in Constantine (2005) and Something’s Gotta Give (2003)—the movie offers further evidence that it’s time to retire the “whoa, dude” image of Keanu Reeves. Even granting that the character he plays here, Detective Tom Ludlow, isn’t terribly bright (the dimmest viewer will grasp what’s going on long before he does), Reeves approaches the role with admirable and believable gravity. Indeed, if any performance in Street Kings ought to be questioned, it’s the one given by Forest Whitaker, who seems to be vying with the late Laurence Olivier for the world championship scenery-chewing title.

Despite the movie’s ostensible James Ellroy clout, there’s absolutely nothing new in terms of the story, and it’s as well to remember that Ellroy cowrote the film with first-timer Jamie Moss and Kurt Wimmer (who boasts such dubious credits as Ultraviolet (2006)). What we have here is the standard-issue corrupt-cop flick—with the corruption amped to a ridiculous level. In fact, the movie scales such heights of preposterousness that it would have played better as the kind of twisted comedy it sometimes attains by accident.

The major element that keeps the movie entertaining is the manner in which Ayer keeps the film moving at a frenetic pace. The film hits the ground running and never stops. It’s one long parade of speeding cars, bullets, chases, arterial spray and shouted dialogue. On those rare occasions when the movie pauses long enough to deliver a piece of the plot, you can be sure that the scene will end with someone—usually Ludlow—screaming in anger and/or roughing up another character. While this is a debatable artistic choice, it does serve two functions: It prevents actual boredom, and it keeps you from having time to realize that much of what you’re being fed doesn’t make any sense. By the end of the film, the pivotal encounter between Ludlow and his former partner, Terrence Washington (Terry Crews, TV’s Everybody Hates Chris), becomes absolute nonsense. It only exists to set up the plot—and has to cheat to do so.

The story—such as it is—involves overzealous Ludlow as the LAPD’s resident Dirty Harry. Actually, he’s Dirty Harry with a drinking problem (except that his constant downing of airline bottles of vodka never seems to have any effect on him) and dead-wife issues, making him just that much more out of control. When we first meet him, he’s setting up some Korean gangsters (with better lines than we ever encounter again) in order to track them to their lair to slaughter the lot of them, make it look like they shot first, and rescue two missing underage girls they have locked in a cage. Just how he knows this last fact is, of course, never explained.

Alas, his high-handed antics have drawn the attention of Internal Affairs Captain James Briggs (Hugh Laurie, TV’s House, M.D.), who is out to bring Ludlow down (or is he?). Ludlow’s own Captain Jack Wander (Whitaker) promises to take care of the Internal Affairs threat if Ludlow will just be calm. This even extends to covering up Ludlow’s unfortunate presence at the presumed gangland slaying of Detective Washington. (Here we have a plot point involving the presence of a third gun that I never did quite understand, but never mind.)

Somehow all this leads to Ludlow falling into an odd-couple teaming with Detective Paul Diskant (a surprisingly good Chris Evans). What follows is a smattering of detecting, an array of colorful characters (of which Cedric the Entertainer stands out), lots of gunplay, squealing tires and blood. And it all winds up uncovering corruption and double crosses where Ludlow least suspects such things (the guy is transcendent in his naiveté). It’s all very loud and very bloody—and somehow agreeably dumb without ever being actually good. Rated R for strong violence and pervasive language.