Brooklyn’s Finest (2009)
Brooklyn’s Finest(2009) Directed by Antoine Fuqua Written by Michael Martin Starring Don Cheadle; Richard Gere; Wesley Snipes; Ethan Hawke; Will Patton; Lili Taylor; Brian O’Byrne; Vincent Donofrio; Ellen Barkin; Michael K. Williams; Hassan Johnson; Isaiah Whitlock; Shannon Kane
Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day benefited from some excellent characterizations (including one brilliant turn from Denzel Washington), spot on dialogue; and an attention to detail that led to a street authenticity rarely achieved in cinema. Some of those same elements can be found in Fuqua’s latest, Brooklyn’s Finest, abut like Training Day the film also unfortunately devolves into a morass of over the top violence and multiple murders. Unlike the latter, which did well sticking to two leads and essentially one tightly wound storyline, Brooklyn’s Finest attempts to cover a week or so in the lives of three separate New York City cops working the confines of Brownsville Brooklyn’s 65th Precinct. The script is from ex Transportation worker and NYC native Michael Martin, who wrote it while recovering from injuries suffered in a car crash. Though the characters look and sound like the real deal, Martin and Fuqua unfortunately employ every cop movie cliche known to man. We get the bitter, divorced, ineffectual detective, Eddie (Richard Gere), a shell of a man who is a mere seven days from retirement; a financially overextended narcotics cop, Sal (Ethan Hawke), father of a big family (the kids simply keep appearing), with pregant wife (Lilli Taylor), who needs to raise funds to move out of a mold infested rat trap and into a new home; and, finally, Tango (Don Cheadle), working deep cover so long that his wife has divorced him as he faces the prospect of turning on his old friend Caz (Wesley Snipes) in order to obtain his long sought after detective shield. Fuqua is clearly after a kind of operatic style, mirroring a film like Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, but like recent similarly constructed New York “coperas” that owe a tip of the hat to the Sydney Lumet dramas of the 1970’s, James Gray’s We Own the Night (2007) and Gavin O’Connor’s Pride and Glory (2008), this one winds up allowing an overly twisted plot to overwhelm the solid visuals, strong acting, and excellent sense of place. Fuqua is after pounding home the tone and look, imbuing the film with an overbearing score (a mix of hip hop; soul; and original music by composer Marcos Zavos), and multiple scenes with characters bathed in darkness, illuminated only by shards of light catching glimpses of their faces. And despite the authentic street feel in many of the scenes, there are numerous head scratching missteps of various kinds, not limited to the Sal role being filled by Ethan Hawke, an excellent actor who looks not one iota like an Italian American; the wasting of indie fave Lili Taylor; the presence of middle-aged Ellen Barkin as a ridiculously “tough” agent; the unfortunate naming of the characters Tango and Caz (Tango and Cash?); a character named Ricky Rosario being played by real life Irishman Brian O’Byrne; Tango continually meeting his police connection, Bill (Will Patton), at a public diner; and the statement of several erroneous facts, most notably the starting salary on the NYPD being $20,000 (currently $44,000 without overtime, etc.). Fans of the brilliant HBO series The Wire will notice the casting of no less than three actors from the show, including Michael K Williams and Hassan Johnson, there to aid the street cred, and surprise of all surprises Wesley Snipes actually does well in his role as an ex-con project kingpin. At several points throughout the film, and again toward the end there is an attempt to have the three lead characters cross paths, though these encounters lack any kind of resonance, which can also be said for the violent individual denouments each will ultimately face. A film that takes itself as seriously as this one does simply has to deliver more.