Street Kings (new David Ayer film - starring Keanu Reeves, F. Whitaker, Game)

[CRAFTY]

STREET KINGS stars Keanu Reeves as Tom Ludlow, a veteran LAPD cop who finds life difficult to navigate after the death of his wife. When evidence implicates him in the execution of a fellow officer, he is forced to go up against the cop culture he’s been a part of his entire career, ultimately leading him to question the loyalties of everyone around him.

Originally, this film was going to be called "The Night Watchman", which I liked better. "Street Kings" sounds like one of those low budget ghetto flicks. On top of it, the promo poster they're using makes it look exactly like it IS another ghetto movie (check the link below).
Anyways, Ayer directed this one (the guy who wrote the script for Training Day and directed Harsh Times) so I think it's safe to say it will be a decent (or good) movie.

Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie (House MD!), Common and The Game star in this movie. I'm not the biggest Keanu Reeves fan, but from the looks of the trailer, he seems pretty convincing at playing the role of a cop.
The trailer looks promising. Hopefully the movie will be good. April  11th is the US release date.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/streetkings/trailera/

[wcsoldier]

Hugh Laurie is hilarious in House MD , I'm surprised NOBODY has talked about this show here , he makes the show worth watching because of himself and it ain't a simple thing to achieve.. these streets related movies are basically always the same but I still like watching new ones ..

[CRAFTY]

^^^^I hear you on both of those things.
It has also surprised me that - as far as I know - nobody has talked about House M.D. on WCC. They air the show every Thursday here in Belgium and beside Prison Break, it's the only show I still watch on TV. The rest of the stuff they show on TV is not worth my time.

And yeah, street movies mostly have the same concept, but I like to watch them as well. This one seems to be taken to a slightly higher level though than the 'average' street flick.

By the way, an 'interesting' detail: a Belgian director (Erik Van Looy) was actually supposed to direct this movie. He had already had several meetings with Keanu Reeves and the film studio in Los Angeles, and Keanu was very glad he was gonna be working with Erik. He had seen the movie 'The Alzheimer Case' which was directed by Erik Van Looy (so far, the best film product coming out of Belgium) and was really impressed by it. But unfortunately, those corporate dicks over at the film studio ultimately decided they wanted a bigger name for a director...not some nobody from a European country. Fuckers. They're missing out on something, if I may say so. Van Looy's one hell of a talented man.

[Eddie G.]

DJ Muggs is doing the music for this movie!

[MIC]

Anyways, Ayer directed this one (the guy who wrote the script for Training Day and directed Harsh Times) so I think it's safe to say it will be a decent (or good) movie.

Plus it's written by James Ellroy. That guarantees the story is going to be more than decent.

[JAZ]

i refuse to watch a movie starring the game.

[GunMaster G-9]

looks interesting. by the way wat ever happened to The Millionaire Boys Club. The movie with Game and Omar. i remember game said it was like a ''boys in the hood'' ''menace to society'' classic. lol

[Elano]

DJ Muggs is doing the music for this movie!

and its gonna be SICK

[Elano]

The film feels out of place and time, shrill and racist, all set to an overly excited score. (latimes review)

POLICE brutality goes down more easily when the cops look sharp and the past provides a measure of storytelling distance, as was the case in director Curtis Hanson's adaptation of the James Ellroy crime novel "L.A. Confidential." Take away the early 1950s lapels and the Brilliantine hair, however, and an audience has a very different relationship to the viciousness on screen.

The proof's in "Street Kings," a shrill, brutal bash set in contemporary L.A. or something like it, written by Ellroy, and then rewritten by Kurt Wimmer and Jamie Moss from Ellroy's story. Again we're neck-deep in police corruption and more unwarranted searches than a season's worth of "The Shield." But any other comparison to "L.A. Confidential," or any other police corruption drama worth seeing, ends there. Director David Ayer, who poured on the City of Angels law enforcement angst in the "Training Day" screenplay and wrote and directed the more interesting "Harsh Times," keeps things at a pitch of near-hysteria throughout "Street Kings." If a cop movie could be screened for fictional characters, Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan might well mutter: "Why don't these thugs just calm down?"

The paradox at the center is Keanu Reeves. He is not an actor you associate readily with cops on the edge, or edging past the edge. When we first meet his character, Det. Tom Ludlow, he's an alcoholic mess (though Reeves has to work very, very hard at conveying any sort of messiness) who arranged to sell a stash of weapons to a scary group of Korean-American gangstas.

It's all a set-up for the big bust; this being Ellroyland, the thugs have penned up underage women in their closet back at the thug house, and when Ludlow's done with the bad men the blood's all over the walls and the coroner's alerted. Ludlow's department boss, played by Forest Whitaker, is mighty proud: "You went toe-to-toe with evil and you won," he says.

"Street Kings" tries to complicate the usual avenging-angel-with-a-badge idea, so that Ludlow must eventually reckon with the extent of the evil he's doing, and what his fellow officers get up to in the name of human garbage collection. When Ludlow's bitter ex-partner is murdered in a convenience store robbery, Ludlow, in an awkwardly plotted bit, just happens to be there, ripe for implication in the killing. As an internal affairs honcho (Hugh Laurie of "House," delivering the exposition with a sneer) keeps the screws tightening around Ludlow's future, Ludlow has to find out who's behind the killing, and why.

The movie runs around chasing subplots, letting the actors chew it up, while Reeves does the opposite. He doesn't chew. He practices his seething, keeping his voice in as low and weary a register as possible, trying to Clint and Vin Diesel his way through a role not well-suited to his preferred Zen-like mode.

In story terms "Street Kings" may not approve of all the rampant police nastiness on screen, but in visceral terms it's all for it. The racism of the various set-ups is hard to ignore. Scene after scene, raging white cops take out the multicultural L.A. trash. Ayer manages a couple of well-staged slaughters. Of course, you can get that sort of thing anywhere these days on television. And you can get it without having to put up with Graeme Revell's ludicrous musical score, which hypes the living end out of each and every vein-throbbing, fire-breathing encounter.

In Ellroy's original scenario "Street Kings" was a period piece, set in the 1990s just after the Rodney King riots. I wonder if it would've made more sense that way. As is, it unfolds in a present that feels dislocated and artificial, where everybody talks fancy-gangster talk while turning the mean streets even meaner.

[Nat Turner-reincarnated]

eye heard this nigga game poured some of his 40 into  his cereal. that = tryin too much to be hard. who the fuck does that

[Okka]

DJ Muggs is doing the music for this movie!

Sounds good, i would love to hear Game over a Muggs beat.

[thisoneguy360]

Saw this shit a few days ago, pretty dope movie, but LOL @ Game and Common "starring" in the movie, Game had like 2 scenes and Common 1

[Eddie G.]

This movie kicked ass.

[GunMaster G-9]

movie started to bore me towards the end.

[E-L-P]

It was an entertaining movie. No really great performances but not terrible either.