Brooklyn's Finest

Well, what would you do if every movie you make since Training Day was a different level of failure? Brooklyn’s Finest is Antoine Fuqua’s return to the world of dirty cops; he ups the ante by having three of them this time around. Yet I don’t see Denzel anywhere and without his sheer force of will, the movie has no way to distinguish itself from every other corrupt cop story.

Maybe following three different cops going down three different roads to corruption was not the best way to spend a couple of hours. Brooklyn’s Finest ended up being a damn depressive movie. It went beyond the deaths of major characters; all the choices being made were so brutal that it was shocking that anyone survived when the credits rolled. Because of how dark the storylines were, the deaths of each major character were not shocking in the slightest. Instead it was just another sigh and shake of the head. I’m unsure why Ellen Barkin’s character had to be such a caricature of a bitch, or why Ethan Hawke needed sooooo much money for a down payment on a house (was he trying to buy 50 Cent’s house in Farmington?), or why Richard Gere was so suicidal, but all it did was foreshadow every character’s downfall.

Even with the weakness of the tone of the film, Brooklyn’s Finest had many actors doing some fine work. It’s always nice to see Don Cheadle in the forefront of a film. He definitely had the standout performance as the undercover cop who just can’t get out. Plus he got to work opposite the best Wesley Snipes role in over a decade. I get that Snipes still thinks he is an A-list action star but it was nice to see him show up as an actual character in a legit movie for once. The same thing I wrote about Ethan Hawke in Daybreakers can be said here; he always is playing another version of tortured. Ellen Barkin looks weird.

I usually really love movies like Brooklyn's Finest but something was off this time around. The whole thing never really came together and the depressing darkness just colored the whole damn movie.

7 out of 10