Review of End of Watch (2012) by Sgt. C — 05 Nov 2014

(14%).

A movie that wanted to cut right through the typical Hollywood cop movie cliches and show what life on the force is actually like, but boiled down to its basic components this is as generic and as Hollywood as every other movie this tries to one up. First and foremost the way this movie is shot just doesn't work. It's a part found footage movie, and part flat out poorly shot, because unlike the footage filmed in a horror found footage movie in which all the characters really have to do is film, scream, hide, run away etc, but if you're a cop there's quite a lot you can't film because you're way too busy doing your job, so who films all that stuff? Well I'm guessing that a ghost of a dead amateur cameraman or something follows the two lead cops around, and occasionally a group of very poorly written street thugs, which partly explains some of the awful camera movements which lets be clear on this are only there to make this feel "edgy" and "real", despite the fact that the star of the show is an A-list Hollywood actor and this is no more of a real cop movie than say "Die hard", or "Lethal weapon". And lastly on the subject, no cop would be given permission to film themselves in this way, because it's dangerous, unlawful, and unprofessional, and why the gangs members are also filming themselves is even more nonsensical as there is zero reason behind them doing it. This really wanted to be an overall insight into police life, so there's aimless banter between characters, they bend the rules at times, there's paper work, shoot-outs, boring jobs to do, weddings, births, wives, etc but the fact is that we already know all this stuff, so there really is no insight to anything shown here. It's just a badly shot generic cop movie with a better cast than the material deserves.