Surprisingly boring

Police corruption and gang violence tied together into a well crafted intense story. It does an excellent job of splitting the narrative up and driving it back together, raising the stakes without too much absurdity. Most impressively, it is never confusing, and a lot of that has to be credited to great editing choices.

This movie is abundant with some really impressive visuals, but the rest of the movie just never manages to break free of boring the shit out of me. Too many scenes with nothing happening ... The stuff that was good was real good though.

Even the bleakest of film noir has a protagonist you can sympathize with to some degree. There’s no one here to root for, no real human element to it. We don’t get to know these people as people, and so it ends up feeling like style over substance. It’s not just a cold worldview, but an unexplained one. The message is unclear, if there is one to be had. There are some noteworthy qualities, especially technical ones, but as a whole the film didn’t do much for me either emotionally or mentally.