Review of Brooklyn's Finest (2010) by James C — 15 Mar 2011

Brooklyns Finest, a gritty cop drama, directed by Antoine Fuqua has a lot to live up to before we even watch it. Fuqua's previous outing with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke (Training Day) was a outstanding piece of cinema with superb acting and plotline. Brooklyns Finest tries to rise to the success of it predeccesor of cop movie but unfortunatley falls quite short.

The film starts off by introducing us to a broken city fuelled with drugs, gangs and rampant crime. The three main characters (Gere, Cheadle and Hawke) are all part of Brooklyns PD, each dealing with life on the force in a different way. However, it is apparent by the end of the film that these seperate characters will all become intertwined with one single action. Thats sadly, where Brooklyns Finest fails to deliver. Although no gripes can be made about the acting in the film ( Hawke's portrayal of a broken cop willing to do anything to get a better life for his family is outstanding) with some top class performances even by Cheadle and O'Byrne - the interest that we had in the 1st half of the film just isnt there in the 2nd. The plot reveals itself to be rather sub par and mediocre, settling for the average american cop movie and not the gritty material were used to from Fuqua. The character development is poor in the second half, not following up on previous events which leaves a few little plot holes and the audience guessing ( and not in a good way).

In the latter parts of the film, the main 'showdown' where Fuqua tries to intertwine the characters doesnt work at all- and the result is dissapointing. We are even introduced to other characters with 20 mins to go before the film ends... these events dont contribute to the main story at all- and are a pointless endeavour. With too much going on toward the end of the film, poor execution and trying to cram everything in to finish the story- we unfortunatley, as an audience, lose interest. A shame, as the production for the film was obviously of high budget with all the acting talent on show here.

Brooklyns finest is actually worth a watch despite its 2 star rating- purely to see the great performances by Hawke, Cheadle and O Byrne. These aspiring actors are the only reason I stayed with the film as long as I did. In fact with a little rearranging, the director may have whittled the movie down to just these 3 main characters and it proballywould have made for a better film :-) . Dont expect to be wowed by the plot because you won't be- whats on offer here is a substandard cop drama. The material presented is promising, but just doesn't seem to execute its formula well enough to captivate audience and more importantly, interest.

Nice try Fuqua but this ain't no Training Day.....

Brooklyns Finest is out now on Bluray and DVD.