Antoine Fuqua‘s Brooklyn’s Finest, seen this morning, did not light my fire. I can’t imagine any prospective buyer or viewer feeling any genuine enthusiasm for it. It’s a right-down-the-middle, seen-it-sixteen-or-seventeen-times-before urban crime movie — bitter cops, angry cops, street homies, drugs, shootings, desperados, etc.
Lack of subtlety was an issue early on. Two guys sitting in a car late at night, dark street, shooting the shit…and I just knew one of them was going to shoot the other. Not a doubt in my mind. Bam…it happened four minutes later. And I groaned so loudly when it did that a person right in front of me turned around and gave me a dirty look. Right after that he see an older cop (Richard Gere) wakes up from a bad dream, taking a sip of whiskey, putting a pistol in his mouth and pulling the trigger…click. That’s Fuqua’s way of telling us he’s in a bad way.
I wrote the movie off at that click moment. I stayed, however, well beyond that. I’m starting to get the idea that if Richard Gere’s starring in a film, it may well have problems.
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