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Review - Brooklyn's Finest
Sporting a far better title than Antoine Fuqua's other police drama
'Training Day', Brooklyn's Finest is inferior in every other
department, but still entertains thanks to a fine cast of Richard Gere,
Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke and Wesley Snipes. This is a morality tale
about disparate New York cops. Cheadle is an undercover cop who is
pushing his luck, and desperately wants the comfort of a desk job.
Richard Gere is the world weary veteran, about to retire after 22 years
on the force. Ethan Hawke is a cop who is taking more and
more risks, desperate for money to feed and house his rapidly growing
family, who pockets the money left on the table during drug raids, and
then seeks reconciliation for his misdeeds in Catholic confession.
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Wesley Snipes is the drug dealer who is trying to find out who the snitch is in his crew, and will believe it could be anyone rather than Cheadle. These topics have been explored before, and to a certain extent there is no real need to re-visit them, except of course in the name of entertainment, and we get that as we wait for the strands of the story to come together.
It is of course a familiar tale of drug deals and prostitutes, corruption and cover ups, rookie cops getting killed, but there are quite a few stand out scenes along the way, including Richard Gere getting dumped by a prostitute (Julia Roberts will get the intended irony and if she doesn't then Lauren Hutton surely will). There is an excellent cameo from Ellen Barkin as an uber police bitch.
In the denouement, when the three storylines converge at a single
location, the message is that it is not who wants life the most, or
fears death the least that matters, just the fickle hand of fate. This
movie would not bear repeat viewing but is good solid entertainment
first time round.
Rating : 7/10 Diverting
Review written by John Franklin : October 2010
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