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Review
Street Kings
Directed by David Ayer
Written by James Ellroy
(novel & screenplay)
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie & Chris Evans
Rating: HHH 1/2
As I watched the ever-earnest lightweight actor Keanu Reeves trying to play a bitter, burned-out LA cop in Street Kings, I spent only a few minutes lamenting the absence of a better actor, before James Ellroy’s tough-cop story socked me in the gut.
I thank my pagan gods of cinema every time this happens, because despite the powerfully visual nature of the medium, it’s the story that gets me every single time. A director can have weak, even shallow, characters and still succeed if the story is in the bag.
A director can even put a slim pretty boy in a lead role that used to go to grizzled heavyweights like Robert Mitchum, Lee Marvin or Clint Eastwood, and still deliver a fast-paced, well-written cop thriller. Street Kings is proof of this.
To his credit, Reeves plays the soul-deadened Detective Tom Ludlow with his characteristic solemnity. But it’s the plot revelations—and not any hint of charisma—that pulls us into the story.
Character-wise, it’s the performance of Forest Whitaker as Captain Jack Wander that creates interest. After Ludlow takes out an entire nest of bad guys and leaves cooked evidence of a gunfight, the Captain shows up at the crime scene.
It’s an opening setup that we’ve seen a hundred times in a hundred cop films, but the scene ends on a surprising and intriguing note—easily intriguing enough (and compounded by further twists) to keep us watching all the way to Street Kings’ violent conclusion.
Like Clint, but dirtier than Harry, Detective Ludlow is a widowed cop who "takes out the trash" without due process, following not the dictates of conscience, but the orders of Captain Wander, who often deals with his hired gun of a detective like a concerned father.
"I need you, Tommy," Wander implores. "Who else can do what you do? You’re the tip of my spear!"
Simmering interdepartmental intrigue is provided by Detective Washington (Terry Crews), who’s disgusted with (his ex-partner) Ludlow’s amoral missions, and who may or may not be working with internal investigator Captain Biggs (Hugh Laurie) to take Ludlow down.
The crap really hits the fan when Ludlow decides to ignore the tender counsel of Captain Wander and break Washington’s jaw, only to find himself involved in another shootout and bloodbath.
Reeves’ performance peaks early in the film as a damaged man who is compulsively unable to do what’s in his own best interest. Hugh Laurie’s role is more of a necessary plot device, and other throwaway characters include Jay Mohr as a police sergeant and Cedric the Entertainer as a mild-mannered hoodlum.
Street Kings briefly lags after Detective Paul Diskant (Chris Evans) is introduced and partnered with Ludlow. But there’s at least one good scene between them—a scene which speaks to an underlying theme regarding the difference between actual violence and the allure of violence, and the difference between homicidal indifference and macho posturing.
"OK," Ludlow says, finally agreeing that Diskant can come with him on a deadly mission. "You want to be a gunfighter. Let’s go."
Director Ayer (a writer himself) strikes all the right tones in the gritty Street Kings, with his cameras prowling LA’s concrete jungle like the predatory Tom Ludlow, evoking the primal with a bass-pounding soundtrack, and hitting again and again on themes of dominance, control and survival-of-the-fittest.
This is the kind of old-fashioned, testosterone-infused cop thriller that Ellroy could write in his sleep. Like much of his work, it follows traditional plotlines that will be all the more apparent to genre fans.
If you’re one of those, you’ll be pretty sure you know where Street Kings is going right from the start, and you’ll be right. But what you won’t know is what brutally twisting roads will lead you there and who will be left standing at the end. | 
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