Rating: 4/10

Street Kings is advertised as being directed by the writer of Training Day, which in my opinion, doesn’t say a whole lot. The ability to write a good film does not automatically make you a good director. Furthermore, Street Kings is not even written by David Ayer, the writer of Training Day, just directed by him. To be fair, Ayer does have one film, Harsh Times, under his belt as director.

Street Kings does have a a few big guns in its pack. Hot off his heels as an Academy Award winner, Forest Whitacker plays police captain Jack Wander. Wander is totally loyal to troubled detective, Tom Ludlow, played by a moping Keanu Reeves. Ludlow has a bad habit of drinking a few minibar bottles of Smirnoff and then heading into a house full of Korean gangsters without backup. Through his huffing and overly serious behavior, we realized that Reeves’ character is bothered by something. To quote Reeves’ most famous film dialogue, “Whoa”.

Ludlow’s gotten into a bit of trouble for his awful police work, and rightfully so, though we’re supposed to understand him and sympathize. Reeves does his darndest to with every acting bone and muscle in his body to show us that he’s battling inner demons. In capable hands, this could have been a character I really liked. Reeves, however, can’t do much more than avoid eye contact. This might have worked in other films, where other actors could have picked up the slack, but in a movie boasting a number of rappers/actors, Jay Mohr with a stupid mustache, and Whitacker who sounds like he’s foaming at the mouth the whole time, it just doesn’t cut it.

And yet, I keep getting away from the storyline. The fact is, there is not much of a story here. Reeves’ Ludlow mopes around, gets in a few gun battles, shows us he’s an unorthodox police officer. A fellow officer who he apparently used to be friends with, gets mowed down. Ludlow happens to be there, wants to get revenge. He then gets in over his head in some really bad stuff. All in all, really bland material. The interesting thing about Training Day was watching notorious good guy Denzel Washington play against the grain. In Street Kings we have notorious troubled inner demons guy Keanu Reeves doing the same thing he always does. Sure, he’s playing an insane detective who is the kind of guy who probably would have fit right in with the Stasi, but because he’s doing the Keanu vibe the whole time, we barely notice it.

One final word about the whole actor/rapper phenomenon. What’s the deal? 8 mile, where Eminem played a version of his rapper persona, was a load of crap, and I really like Eminem. Ludicrous in Crash was decent, but other than for box office returns, I can’t really see why they couldn’t have picked a capable actor. In Street Kings you’ve got Common and The Game both playing L.A. crime figures, in other words, not too far from their rapper personas. I though Method Man was pretty awful in American Gangster, but at least he was playing a straight cop. This is a trend that has just got to stop. I wonder if I’m the only one annoyed by gangster rappers playing their gangster rapper characters in movies. (In other words, not themselves, but copies of what they copy in real life. I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.)

I really do enjoy a good action flick once in a while and I’m also totally cool with the whole Dirty Harry badass cop thing, but this movie really gets nothing right. If this thing had been a TV pilot, I doubt it would have ever passed the first round. Skip it.

Filed under: 2008 by A.B.