Street Kings

Forget all about the good cop-bad cop paradigm. In Street Kings, the police are crooked by default. They don't follow any rules but their own. Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) is one of them. Acting alone so there are no witnesses, his life takes a dramatic turn when he gets exposed and is implicated in the killing of a fellow officer.

Street Kings is a very dark film, and its riches lie in the themes it tackles: hypocrisy, violence, righteousness, justice, and corruption. It goes further than most cop films by adopting a neutral point of view: the main character is shown to be a "Street King", as it were, following no rules but his own - yet when he gets implicated in the murder of his colleague, that very power becomes his weakness.

The contradiction of Ludlow's character is highlighted by an unusual, yet inspired direction, which moves with ease from TV-like shots to epic action camera settings, from the warm dark of the night to the coldness of high-contrast day shots. Ultimately, though, the film revolves around Ludlow being hunted down and fighting back. Keanu Reeves (Speed, The Matrix) is now used to hard-packed action movies, and he was a natural choice for this David Ayer (Training Day, Harsh Times) film. It nearly goes to the point that the rest of the star-studded cast, including Forest Whitaker, are upstaged.

Street Kings is thus a cop movie that ticks all the boxes of the genre, including a great rap and hip-hop score, race issues, lots of guns and a love-story in the background to bring an element of stability to the plot; yet, it brings a new life to it by withholding any moral judgement. It will therefore satisfy all the aficionados of the likes of Training Day with its fast pacing, and also interest regular moviegoers with the questions it raises.

Pierre Schramm