Los Angeles Detective Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) is the tip of the spear. He’s a gunfighter battling it out with the worst of the worst, taking out the scum of the city in ways that aren’t exactly described in the police officer manual. He’s the Dirty Harry of the city, the leader of a team of high octane professionals doing the business their notoriously aggressive and hard-nosed superior Captain Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker) deems as necessary.

Keanu Reeves has guns blazing in Fox Searchlight's Street Kings

All this murder and mayhem doesn’t go unnoticed, however, nosey Internal Affairs officer Captain James Biggs (Hugh Laurie) putting the pressure on Ludlow to talk about all the shady doings his team has been secretly engaging in. At first the detective isn’t too worried, but when his estranged former partner Terrence Washington (Terry Crews) is the victim of a brutal hit implicating him, Tom teams up with newbie investigator Paul Diskant (Chris Evans) to discover what is really going on and the true story behind all the dangerous missions he’s been risking his life conducting.

Once I realized director David Ayer’s (Harsh Times) latest effort Street Kings was nothing more than a modern day B-grade Western I can’t say I was all that unhappy with it. There is a kinetic magnetism to the feature that’s defiantly aggressive, the whole thing played to pulsating hip-hop style rhythms that reverberate all throughout the movie theater. At times it is even downright electric, amidst all the cacophony of ricocheting bullets and blood-curdling profanity and actual human story moderately worth keeping an eye upon.

Unfortunately I can’t say these positives are near enough to make the film worth the effort of purchasing a ticket. I’m not sure what happened, but I can only assume original writer James Ellroy’s (L.A. Confidential, Dark Blue) has been significantly diluted by additional screenwriters Ayer, Jamie Moss and Kurt Wimmer (Ultraviolet). I say this because the author’s novels and scripts tend to crackle with authenticity and nuance most crime thrillers lack while this one instead treads ham-handedly through overbearing familiarity and maudlin cliché. We expect more from him and this film certainly doesn’t deliver on that front, and considering just how far Ellroy has distanced himself from the project my gut tells me the other three deserve far more of the blame then he does.

Seriously, there is so much recycling going on you’d think you were at a waste processing facility. Sample cringe-worthy lines include, “He bleeds blue,” “It’s not how we do it, it’s how we write it up,” “Good can come from bad” and “Death doesn’t wash away blood.” Seriously, all that’s missing is a trip to a donut shop, otherwise just about every cop cliché imaginable on display and ready for audiences to silently smirk and giggle at.

Even this, though, wouldn’t be so bad if Ayer didn’t treat the film like it was the SINGLE. MOST. IMPORTANT. COP. THRILLER. EVER. MADE! It’s like he thinks he’s made something so daringly original and different he has to sell the point continually, Gabriel Beristain’s (The Invisible) over-theatric camerawork and Graeme Revell’s (The Ruins) throbbing score selling every moment and scene with all the subtlety of an over-aggressive sledgehammer.

All of which is rather unfortunate because the cast, especially the often-ridiculed Reeves and Fantastic Four and Sunshine hottie Evans, here is absolutely top-notch. All of them were made for these roles, inhabiting them with far more dexterity and ease (and with much more nuance and shading) then the film probably deserves. Only Whitaker goes off the rails, his titanic larger-than-life turn as the bombastic commander of Ludlow’s band of rogue cops so wildly hysterical it borders on the laughable. 

Still, there is an old-school Walter Hill-style Western ethos to Street Kings that, once you let it capture you, is kind of difficult to dismiss. I also liked the unapologetic nature of the hero’s blatant nihilism, his awakening soul only a device helping facilitate his ultimate bloody revenge. But the cliché onslaught combined with all the booming self-importance becomes far too much to bear, and unfortunately after a while the only gun I wanted to see fired was the one silencing this movie for good.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  Street Kings Theatrical Trailer