BEFORE: I suppose I could have worked in the HBO movies "Recount" and "Game Change", about the 2000 and 2008 elections, respectively, but I'm feeling done with politics. Besides, Josh Brolin is my link to the next topic, cop and crime films. This is a reboot of a TV series from the 1960's that I never watched, but I'll give it a whirl.
THE PLOT: Three minor delinquents are recruited by a cop working undercover to bust a cop/drug ring.
AFTER: Well, this was not a game-changer by any measure. I feel the need to compare it to Michael Palin's walk from Monty Python's "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch. (If you're not familiar with it, please go check it out now on the YouTube, I'll wait) Palin's character wants funding for a silly walk that he's developing, and after demonstrating it, the man in charge of funding points out that one leg wasn't being silly at all, and the other merely performs a forward aerial half-turn every alternate step.
That is to say, this film wasn't complicated at all, it was just a simple film about three people working undercover for the police. Part of the problem was that there weren't too many characters, so if someone on the police force was corrupt, well, there weren't too many options in guessing who it was. It's kind of like when you can figure out the killer on "Law & Order" by just reading the opening credits. An Oscar-nominated actor isn't going to do a guest spot on a cop show unless he (or she) can play a complex role like a killer or a pedophile. In more recent seasons of "L&O: SVU" I think they've pulled a few double-bluffs, hiring a name actor who turns out to NOT be the killer, but I digress.
I've done cop films as a theme at least twice already, and maybe you can hate on a film like, say, "Live Free or Die Hard" for being completely unrealistic and over-the-top, but at least it took chances, it put itself out there. This one just lumbered along to the end, with all the excitement of a six-hour stakeout.
Starring Claire Danes (last seen in "The Hours"), Omar Epps, Giovanni Ribisi (last seen in "Avatar"), Dennis Farina (last seen in "Out of Sight"), Richard Jenkins (last heard in "The Tale of Despereaux"), with cameos from Sam McMurray, Eddie Griffin (last seen in "John Q").
RATING: 3 out of 10 unmarked cars
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