Review of “Street Kings”
I’m not sure of the collective noun for clichés. An overuse? A groan? Whatever it might be, Street Kings has them. And the cliché contagion is not just confined to characters and dialogue. The performances are decidedly infected, as is the score. Cliches are everywhere: from plot to shot.
Take Keanu Reeves as Tom Ludlow; he’s a formula of the cynical, alcoholic cop who’s turned seedy and bad – but in a good sort of way (if you leave your morality at the Hollywood counter on the way in). He specializes in killing people at the bottom of the criminal food chain – child kidnappers and crazed drug dealers - the types with value systems not dissimilar to his own. Then there’s Ludlow’s boss, standard issue Police Captain Wander (Forrest Whitaker), a tough talking, foul-mouthed, overweight man in a suit, handed all the best dialogue clichés by the screenwriters. “You went toe-to-toe with evil. And you won,” he congratulates Ludlow, who he sees as a protégé and a necessary part of his violent vice-squad team. “You’re the tip of the spear. You stand between us and the scum on the streets.” You get the idea.
After notching up a few bloody kills, and being threatened by Internal Affairs operative Captain Biggs (Hugh Laurie), Ludlow finds himself pursuing the lowlife who have killed his cop-buddy. As he stumbles mindlessly from one confrontation to the next, he starts to expose dodgy police activity and puts himself, his girlfriend (Martha Higareda), and his new cop-buddy Detective Diskant (Chris Evans) at risk. As Internal Affairs close in, we also learn that crucial bit of clichéd back-story (you can probably guess) that explains Ludlow’s sad and demented behaviour.
It’s a grim world that comes from a novel by grim crime writer James Ellroy. There’s no moral hard ground anywhere and the story is awash with the lurid discharge of corruption and vice. Ludlow, our hero, is unattractive, unimaginative and unintelligent, never able to connect the large dots of the plot, but somehow able to avoid the huge holes. Reeves is as stiff and unconvincing as Whitaker is florid and ludicrous. Even the usually dependable Hugh Laurie looks thinly drawn, and only Chris Evans manages to create a character with more substance than an empty gun chamber. Director David Ayer keeps the pace clicking along, filling the screen with grimy violence and shoot-by-numbers cop scenes. Never dull, but parody would have been a much better option.
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