Street Kings

A very impressive and diverse cast. And also Jay Mohr.

I enjoyed it in the same way I enjoyed "Running Scared." It's a thriller that's only goal is to entertain. You're not meant to think, everything is explained completely, not that it really needs to as a lot of the film's plot can be guessed if you've seen a decent amount of cop flicks. I think of it as Training Day-Lite. I particularly thought Chris Evans was great. He needs more good roles. It does succeed in it's goal of being entertaining though but don't expect anything more.

Reeves just isn't convincing as a hardnosed LAPD cop. The entire plot of this movie looked like it was pulled from a third rate TV show. The acting is adequate but you get the impression that everyone is just doing it for the paycheck. There is no enthusiasm or depth here at all. Also, there's all kinds of obligatory casual racism to try and make the characters look "badass" in this movie which is ironic considering Keanu Reeves is half-asian himself. It's alright for a drunken night of movies.

By the numbers cop film. Enjoyable, on a visceral level.

David Ayer is like the Dude With Sign, holding one that says “I wish I had directed ‘Training Day’ myself” only he ain’t no Antoine Fuqua, and where the unorthodox casting of folks like Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre worked wonders, repeating this with names like Chris Evans and Cedric the Entertainer does not. It’s watchable and pulls no punches from the get go, but also too straightforward for my taste and the characters or about as forgettable as a side order of lukewarm potato wedges at Pizza Hut.

Full of star actors who all do bad job. Story isn't that interesting either.

Why is Forrest Whitaker always shouting ? To predictable , and acting wasn't good either

It's another movie about hardass LA cops. Can't we have a change of location for once? And not NY please.

With a mixed message about murder and justice, "Street Kings" doesn't have much more to offer than "Training Day" or "Dark Blue," or several others of its kind. Reeves' performance is barely passable, but Forest Whitaker, Chris Evans, and believe it or not, Jay Mohr have solid turns. But the movie is so overblown and ballooned with a ludicrous amount of plot-threads and shifts in loyalty that it all gets a bit redundant and sleepy, even if you're drinking multiple Red Bull's trying to follow it.

There's something cynical about Ayer's attempt to preserve Ludlow as a hero after scene upon scene meant to show, with heavy irony, how lawlessly he enforced the law. You can't lionize your "Dirty Harry" vigilante and expose his hypocrisy, too.

"There is certainly something compelling in the film's ideas, but the way they're executed suggest that any true questions about morality and the law are just grist for the action mill."

It is a film that entertain. The problem here is, not to decide which is the purpose of the story, getting a little confused. Not bad, but nothing special.

Not bad over-all, but it is pretty cliched. The acting is generally fine and the overall film has some good gritty direction.

nice thriller with good cast, only chris evans is at full throttle though

Street Kings, despite having a large number of action sequences, falls flat in being a testosterone-infused action flick. This is mostly due to the fact that there is no character that you will care for and no plot point that will matter. The film doesn't even seem to care much, forgetting about the important issues it brings up at the beginning, instead choosing to focus on the corruption in the police force. There just isn't much to care about in this boring film.

Cool enough. Decent star power. Chris Evans dying happened earlier and more abruptly than I thought it would. I'm not sure what the message here was. I didn't know enough about the supporting characters to make the investigation reveals pay off, though the final reveal was fairly foreshadowed. Fav scene: the staged convenience store robbery.

Messy misfire, but an interesting one – the main players may be miscast to varying degrees, but all rise to the occasion, with Reeves unusually good as the blunt and dubious lead, though he gets fine support from Whitaker, Mohr and Evans (sore thumb Laurie can’t quite match his co-stars). The biggest problem is Wimmer’s re-write of Ellroy, giving the film an oddly discombobulated quality, swinging wildly between L.A. CONFIDENTIAL intricacy and fill-in-the-blanks actioner.

I thought it was ok it had decient action.

Too superficial.

Average crime thriller with slightly above average cast. Poor script makes this slighty above cable TV movie levels.

Like a cheap pizza, it gets the job done.

I liked the beginning, but more further the story goes more deeper it sinks. Mr. House MD was funny to see in hospital as a non-doctor.

A very entertaining film, although a good majority seems as though it found its motivation in training day. Overall however this movie keeps you on the edge of your seat with its over the top action, and creative violence.

I saw a part of this on TV at my cousin's house. I think that was enough to tell it wasn't very good.

Poor Hugh Laurie. This is the equivalent of clinic duty for Dr. House. There's really nothing interesting to see here.

Decent cop thriller with a good cast and some good action scenes. Keanu Reeves I felt was miscast as the hard edged detective but he was alright in his role, however the movie's problem was that it was very predictable, I just wanted to scream at Keanu's character on the screen for not figuring out the twist, you're a freaking detective. Decent flick but one that probably won't be remembered with other great cop flicks!

exigent circumstances.....

good one-man-against all, no-way-out stituation themed movie

Good. A cop drama based on a James Ellroy novel, and although it shares the same theme of corrupion as in the stellar Ellroy adaptation, LA Confidential, kings has a hurried, unfinished feel to it, and one's reminded of "Training Day" but still the great source material manages to lift this movie up a couple notches. Keanu Reeves acts surprisingly well as the edgy cop Tom Ludlow, reminiscent of his performance in Point Break. Definitely worth a rental or a DVD/Bly-Ray purchase.

Nothing really special

One of the darkest visions of law enforcement I've seen portrayed on film. Forest Whitaker steals every scene he's in, but the rest of the cast is solid too. Very good film.

Przewidywalne kino ze starym Reevesem...

63.000

Unremarkable film on pretty much all aspects, but still watchable.

Amusing

Corrupt cops in L.A., ho hum. I liked this show better when it was called Training Day. I always appreciate Chris Evans, though.

This actually does have some qualities reminiscent of James Elroy's books, but not in particularly interesting ways.

On paper, there's aspects of greatness such as in the Hong Kong film "Internal Affairs" wherein one cannot know who to _truly_ trust in the police . But oh man the dialogue. It deflates every suspenseful scene with its immaturity. As if it was written by a 13 yo. "You were a brother to me! I can't believe this is true. Was everything else a lie, too?" It's "The Room" level dialogue paired with a decent attempt at a conspiracy movie.

James Ellroy is one of my very favorite authors. How did this cop thriller end up so incredibly bland?

Very predictable Street Kings is something you've seen a hundred times before--a cop against his corrupt superiors. However, the movie is well executed and therefore recommended.

"Training Day Lite"

"Feels like stuff left over from a random episode of CSI: Dirty Cop Division."

"Surely two decades of TV's post-Bochco dirty-cop dramas have removed this kind of potboiler not only from claims of artiness, but from expectations of being taken seriously." - Bill Weber

Passes the time.

This movie should be called "Cops Behaving Bad". The script was not good for this movie and Keanu Reeves was miscast in the lead role.There are so many better cop dramas than this one.

not so good

I'll say up front that I didn't expect to like this one a whole bunch, and it's hardly the most original take on the rogue-cop-fights-the-whole-damn-system cop thriller. It started out being written by James Ellroy, and it sure feels like dumbed-down Ellroy. That said, I enjoyed the hell out of this thing. The cast is absolutely stacked, and many of the choices are refreshingly odd ... Cedric the Entertainer, Jay Mohr, Common and John Corbett all show up as various degrees of corruptness.

Sub-Shield stuff for the most part, nothing can prepare you for what's coming. Not content with concentrating the drama around plot twists that can be spotted a country mile off, the final 25 minutes is such unmitigated dogshit you literally forget the first hour+ wasn't all that bad. It's like the writers had to invent something on the fly to wrap it all up, and everything from Bond baddie confessions to Houdini-esque escapes to complete moral reversal of characters is thrown in. Waste of time.

Started out good but it gets worse and the ending is just bad.

Keanu Reeves. Oh my. I went into this with my head down but the movie surprised me and in the end it was worth watching. Keanu, as ever, is not the best expressional actor, but was good for this role. Good, but violent, action. I thought Forest Whitaker 'over-acted' his role, but all, in all, it was an entertaining movie.

A story really far too simple, predictable, and politically correct!

It tried too hard to be gritty and made it seem like Grit ifself is what sells to audiences; While simaltaneously forgetting that good films usually begin with an above average story, filled with atleast a little bit of character development and emotional growth. Note to self Grit itself is not a selling point to me atleast. Kudos for the effort and for assembling such a diverse cast for such an average screenplay. Make a Grit smoothie next time and try and blend all aspects together.

Keanu Reeves does not work as a hard-nosed L.A. narcotics cop. I repeat, Keanu Reeves does not work as a hard-nosed L.A. narcotics cop.

Basically, this movie just sucks. It's predictable, badly written, badly directed, badly acted, etc. Oh, and the violence is way too sensationalized. Avoid this, please!