End of Watch

Year 13, Day 4 - 1/4/21 - Movie #3,704

BEFORE: Well, once I got those two Korean films out of the way, my film choices seem to be about getting to films that I almost programmed last year.  This one's got so many connections to films like "Extraction" or "The Lincoln Lawyer" and even to the "Twilight" saga, it's really curious why this one didn't make the cut during 2020.  That's just a reminder that a film has to fit somewhere on both sides - there needs to be an intro link AND an outro link, even if that turns out to be the same person.  So it must mean that there were many ways to link TO this film, but none of the outgoing links from it got me to where I needed to be.  The same goes for tomorrow's film, only this time these films ARE pointing me in the right direction, which means toward the films of Ingmar Bergman, albeit in a roundabout way. 

Jake Gyllenhaal carries over again from "Wildlife". 

THE PLOT: Shot documentary-style, this film follows the daily grind of two young police officers in L.A. who are partners and friends, and what happens when they meet criminal forces greater than themselves. 

AFTER: It's an interesting notion, to attempt to tell the story (or stories) of two officers on patrol in L.A. in a P.O.V. sort of style, after all, bodycams are currently a fixture in many cities, and that footage can often be very enlightening whenever questionable incidents occur.  Also, shows like "COPS" and other found-footage shows have been around for a while, and we've gotten used to them.  For extra measure, the screenwriters made one of these two cops a bit of a videographer himself, so in addition to the bodycams, there's his personal camcorder footage.  

Which is fine, except for a few things - there's just NO WAY that the L.A.P.D. would allow an officer to have his own personal video camera active and running on an average day.  Of course that would be a distraction, and a liability, and there's just too great of a chance that the camera would record something that the public shouldn't see, like, I don't know, maybe an officer putting down his gun to have a bare-knuckle brawl with a suspect?  Fair fight, perhaps, but probably against the rules of engagement for a police officer.  

Also, the combination of the bodycams and the camcorder footage could not, in any way, result in the amount of multi-camera sequences seen in this film. Mostly, it's just presented like a typical Hollywood film, where the camera is wherever it's supposed to be to get the best shot, even though it's technically impossible for it to be there.  For example, when the cops are kicking down a door, the camera is somehow inside the house, to get footage of the door falling to the floor on the inside - how did the camera get in there, if the door was locked?  It's movie magic, and usually the audience doesn't even think about this, only this time I WAS thinking about it, because the film used the bodycams and camcorder so many times.  The gimmick really hurt the film in this way, because if you're going to use this gimmick, I think you really have to stick with it - it's all or nothing.  

Similarly, there's camcorder footage from the bad guys, too - the gang members who are driving around, looking for our LAPD heroes, or in some cases even tailing them, trying to figure out how best to get them in an ambush.  OK, maybe they're vain or really into social media, but something else tells me that if they're up to no good, they probably wouldn't have been recording their actions for the sake of posterity.  Either way, I was aware of the unlikeliness of this, and that made me doubt the reality of the film, and that's never a good thing.  

Beyond that, it's moderately interesting to see these two officers during the course of several days (weeks?) and their reputations sort of rise and fall with their successes and failures.  When we first meet them, they've been cleared to return duty after a shooting incident, so they get a bunch of ribbing from their fellow officers.  Later on, they rescue three small children from a burning building, and receive medals for bravery.  Even later, they investigate a house connected to an arrested suspect and accidentally find a room full of human trafficking victims - which seems great at first, only their discovery upsets a bunch of federal agents who were working this case, and who then warn them that there could be reprisals against them from a Mexican cartel.  

Along the way, the two officers bond and exchange relationship advice - of course one of them married his high-school girlfriend and has a child on the way, while the other one is single and looking for a woman who's intelligent, not just one of the "badge bunnies" who apparently are women really into dating police officers.  It's a little cornball how the differences between the two members of this duo is what enables each to give advice to and gain understanding from the other, though.  

Speaking of cornball, I've got a couple possible paths I can take from here, such as following the Michael Peña link to "CHiPS", or the David Harbour link to "Hellboy".  "CHiPS" seems thematically on point, and "Hellboy" doesn't, but neither of those films gets me closer to where I need to be in a few days.  For that matter, neither do the four films with Anna Kendrick on my list - so I'm going to follow the link that not only gets me to another film that I tried very hard to watch last year, but somehow missed out on, and happens to be only five steps away from a film with Max Von Sydow in it. 

Also starring Michael Peña (last seen in "The Lincoln Lawyer"), David Harbour (last seen in "Extraction"), Frank Grillo (last seen in "Lay the Favorite"), Jaime Fitzsimons (last seen in "Stronger"), America Ferrera (last heard in "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"), Cody Horn, Kristy Wu, Natalie Martinez (last seen in "Self/Less"), Anna Kendrick (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Cle Sloan (last seen in "Bright"), Shondrella Avery, Maurice Compte (last seen in "Once Upon a Time in Venice"), Flakiss, Richard Cabral (last seen in "The Counselor"), Diamonique, Candace Smith, Kevin Vance, David Fernandez Jr., Nelly Castillo, McKinley Freeman 

RATING: 5 out of 10 shell casings