Street Kings: Review By Fallenlords

I have to say I enjoyed this film but probably for the wrong reasons. I like any sort of film with lots of guns and violence, that at least tries to retain some sort of plot and story. My only gripe is there seems to be a trend in Holywood at the moment for the actors to go around as though they have been smacked in the face with a wet fish. Keanu Reeves is the lead character, Detective Tom Ludlow, who is a sort of semi-sanctioned hitman for the Police Department and goes through the whole film looking fish smacked.

Captain Jack Wander (Forrest Whittaker) is his superior office and keeps things nicely squared away. He runs interference for his special squad and makes sure things always go their way, one way or another. I like Forrest Whittaker I think he is a very good actor, the last couple of films I have seen with him have been quite good. The Air I Breath and the Great Debators.

Things get complicated when Ludlow’s ex-partner Detective Terrence Washington (Terry Crews) starts talking to Captain James Biggs (Hugh Laurie) of Internal Affairs. It appears that Detective Washington may be about to give evidence against Ludlow, who isn’t exactly a straight cop. He sort of bends the rules but with best intentions!

Its a reasonably fast paced film, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out the plot. So no amazing twist at the end, but lots of bullets and action. There are a few twists and turns, but for the most part they are pretty predictable to everybody accept the lead character Ludlow. Perhaps that’s what being smacked in the head with a wet fish does to you, makes you a bit dumb.

You can’t really say too much about this film without giving it all away, but basically its a bad cop, worse cop type of scenario. No real heroes in this one at all. Watch out for Chris Evans, Detective Paul Diskant, who is a homicide detective who teams up with Ludlow ‘out of hours’ to try and figure things out. That is Chris Evans of Fantastic Four fame and not the one who was married to Billie Piper. Took me a while to figure out who it was, knew the face just couldn’t place him at all. To me that is a sign of a reasonable actor, appearing different depending on the role. Although it could be just my memory is giving me issues as I get older. But I don’t think that’s the case as I have a good memory all around for films, film stars etc.

Definitely in my opinion worth a watch, especially if you like cop type films. Its nothing special, but its good. I just wish Keanu looked a bit happier, but then I suppose how happy are you suppose to be if your job basically entails killing sc*m bags? Don’t suppose it would be much of a laugh.