BEFORE: I've got a few cop/crime films to choose from, but I'm going with this one because my trivia team played in Brooklyn last night, and came out on top, netting me $23 profit and making us "Brooklyn's finest" where trivia is concerned. I can link from "The Mod Squad" a few ways, since Claire Danes was in a film called "The Flock" with Richard Gere (last seen in "Autumn in New York"), and Richard Jenkins co-starred with Gere in "Shall We Dance".
THE PLOT: Three unconnected Brooklyn cops wind up at the same deadly location after enduring vastly different career paths.
AFTER: This is from the same director as "Training Day", and in many ways it appears to be cut from the same cloth. The cops portrayed here are very different, but they exist in a world of moral ambiguity. One is a veteran cop, one week from retirement, who tends to turn a blind eye to most crime since he's essentially checked out and burned out. The second is a family man, who has no problem pocketing money during a bust, since he's trying to buy a house for his wife and kids. And the third is an undercover cop who's been undercover so long, he's in danger of crossing over to protect his identity.
Any one of these stories might have supported it's own film, I think - but they're even stronger when combined together. When juxtaposed, they present a gripping, if rather bleak, portrait of modern police work and the effect it has on the policemen.
Also, it's an exercise in parallel editing - which is really a misnomer since parallel lines in geography never touch, but as a rule parallel storylines in a film are designed to (eventually) interact. This film took so long in getting there, I thought perhaps it was going to be the rare exception to the rule, and I think I would have been OK with that. As it stands, the way that the stories come together seemed a bit forced, kind of like the way "Crash" was, only without the blatant use of metaphor. Geez, that film won the Best Picture Oscar, and this film was at least as good as that one, possibly better. Why wasn't this one nominated?
Maybe this one's just a bit too real for that - but at one point in the film all three main characters are seen to be in potentially explosive situations at the same time (presumably) and who's to say that's not possible? I think the point is that any situation the police find themselves in could go south at any time unless cooler heads prevail. And all this is in just one project in one precinct in one borough of NYC. Sheesh.
Also starring Don Cheadle (last seen in "Iron Man 2"), Ethan Hawke (last seen in "Reality Bites"), Wesley Snipes (last seen in "Mo' Better Blues"), Will Patton (last seen in "The Mothman Prophecies"), with cameos from Ellen Barkin (last seen in "Switch"), Lili Taylor (last seen in "Born on the Fourth of July"), Vincent D'Onofrio (last seen in "The Cell").
RATING: 6 out of 10 handcuffs
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