Apr

4

Street KingsIn tennis the secret is location, location, location. In movies, it's casting, casting, casting.

Among the still-gestating elements of "Street Kings," now on-screen, is the textured and mature work by Keanu Reeves. Forest Whittaker, always a standout, plays a role that is also layered and unobvious, though he seems perpetually ready to break out into a marathon sweat; here, it works for his cachet and role. Hugh Laurie, spot-on casting, was a hoot to follow. His appearance onscreen, as with Cedric the Entertainer's hangdog cameo-plus in a brilliant set of crimson wheels, elicited an audible sigh of endorsement from acolytes who recognize the beloved featured actors from other venues.

Jay Mohr and John Corbett, both, were worthy spots for our eyes to land, both working against type in prior filmic and tube outings. Both also thicker and older-longing. Maybe Keanu and these two took a bouillabaisse-thickening course so they'd finally look grown up. While they usually play cherubs, here, you knew they were up to no good. As with most police procedurals, the women play a decidedly ancillary role, though the wife of Keanu's slain partner was a model of subtlety and controlled rage.

To be perfectly truthful, from scanning the credits, we can often tell the malefactors and bad guys by an Insta-matic assessment of the variables, how far down the particular casting ring-toss is, then doing a fast Chinese menu of likelihood for almost any plot development. This film proves we can do it with the champs. Maybe too many Monk repeats have chiseled our detective chops.

The plot provides ample twisty turns and reverses, so most viewers won't really predict how a particular section will resolve. Good guys are bad; bad guys are good–or are they? We must admit our expectations for this film were not very elevated, but we were agreeably surprised, and the film could even sustain (yikes) a second viewing. The dialogue, especially, was fast and suitable to the milieu, revealing that script-writer cohorts are darkly familiar with the genre and dirty-copville. Evokes the Gere/Garcia/Travis 1990 pleaser, "Internal Affairs." We observe that this procedural evokes particularly convoluted scripting and storylines, quite a treat compared to the pared-down rom/com or sit-flic fare offered in many top-grossers lately. The periodic skycam overview of LA shown strategically throughout the film provided a "Batman" or "Blade-Runner"-like darkling threat-presence, evil glinting in the sick-yellow slits of illumined night windows lit when all should, one supposes, be extinguished.

A minor cavil is the gory evident whenever Reeves and "Disco" (Chris Evans) do their solo clean-up raids against the presumed bad guys. Another is the protagonist's girlfriend: Why is she Hispanic? How come he's taken to her hospital when he gets nicked? Why is she the nurse on duty when he is gurneyed in? Coincidences like this bug the nitpicky. Why, when all the cops get together for a kegfest, do they all seem to have Hispanic Playboy bunnies as main squeezes? It rang false, and every appearance of Amaury Nolasco got under my skin. These men are not themselves Hollyweird stars; as cops, they would not have access, one believes, to such choice non-native female pulchritude. Nor would they all catch the exact Barbie-doll replica as Reeves engages.

LA itself is cinematically captured as moody and patchy, not clichetic. Much like the 'patchy' police, a law unto themselves, never giving an inch: There are precious few honest ones. Or if they happen to manage to be, they don't get to stay alive very long. Subplots involving kidnapped illegals and drug-trade operators, while not new, are important for those who don't follow the news as closely as they should.

Caveat popcorn-er: This may not be your cuppa joe. But if you cotton to sweaty cop capers… all in, "Kings" rates Aces for entertainment, acting, plotlines - and high Jacks for resolution.


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