Brooklyn's Finest

Cop Drama. Basically. Your old-school, multi-threaded cop drama, focusing on
three cops who work in Brooklyn, whose lives are coming loose at the seams, and
which all finally blows apart one night.

You've got stereotype Irish Catholic cop Ethan Hawke who's got like a billion
kids, two more on the way, and living in a tiny mold infested house that's
killing his wife and unborn twins. He's got to get some money together to buy a
house, and there's all this cash lying around while he's making drug bust...

You've got undercover cop Don Cheadle, who's in deep, deep, deeeeeep cover with
a local drugs gang, and going a bit native. He's got a shot at getting promoted
and getting out of undercover, but he's got to set up the guy who saved his
life when he was undercover in prison...

You've got beat cop Richard Gere, who's never been a very good cop, is days
from retirement, has lost his nerve, and has being turning a blind eye to some
pretty bad stuff.

There's not a lot more to it than that, really. These three guys, and the
people around them, go about their business for a day or so, as things get out
of control, leading to a dramatic conclusion.

Richard Gere's good. It's been a while since he's been in a film without the
express purpose of moistening the knickers of women of a certain age. Here he's
a flawed, cowardly, compromised man, and he does a great job of conveying a lot
without saying much. It's been a while since he reminded us that he's actually
an actor.

Don Cheadle's also very good. He, Wesley Snipes and Michael K. Williams (Omar
from The Wire) are the core of a New York drug gang, and they lend their
section of the film a pretty hefty weight, much like The Wire (only obviously
without the *density*.)

Ethan Hawke's kind of the weak link, as is his section of the movie. In that
he's got all these kids, all this Catholic guilt, this looming deadline, and
all this sweaty angst. It's just too, too much. I'm sure there's plenty of
people with this kind of problem, but he's just so twitchy. He's overplaying
it, and the script lays it on way too thick. Which is not to say it's not quite
good, but it's a tad silly.

Overall, it's pretty good, not the most original film in the world, you've
probably seen everything in the film done before, and better elsewhere. But
it's certainly absorbing enough that you're happy to see it again.