Sundance Review: ‘Brooklyns Finest’

A star studded gritty cop drama directed by Antoine Fuqua who is also responsible for ‘Training Day’ and ‘Shooter’. The movie follows several plot lines following 3 main characters. The retiring cop played by Richard Gere, the undercover cop played by Don Cheadle, and the dirty cop played by Ethan Hawke.

Basically you have Hawke who is trying to provide for his growing family, and is having problems doing so on a cop salary. Richard Gere is 7 days away from retirement, has lost all joy in being a cop and is being forced to take on a rookie for training. Don Cheadle is running a drug operation undercover and is trying to make the jump out of undercover work, to some type of detective desk job. Their paths cross several times without even knowing it, and the story intertwines in the process.

Antoine Fuqua is a master at doing cop drama’s and this is the case here as well, however the story drags a bit and chugs along at a pretty slow pace. I also think that before this movie is purchased they will have to change the ending simply because its just really depressing but as it currently sits is the only good way to end the movie. The Latino Review guys said that the script had a different ending that they preferred so my guess would be that they go back to that.

If the movie had been a little bit shorter, and stuck with the original script ending I would have given it a 4 out of 5, so without those things..

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5