Brooklyn’s Finest (2009)

Directed by: Antoine Fuqua | 132 minutes | action, drama, thriller, crime | Actors: Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, Wesley Snipes, Vincent D’Onofrio, Brian F. O’Byrne, Will Patton, Lili Taylor, Ellen Barkin, Jesse Williams, Shannon Kane, Wass Stevens, Armando Riesco, Wade Allain- Marcus, Logan Marshall-Green

With the Oscar-winning ‘Training Day’, Antoine Fuqua has shown that he can credibly translate the harsh reality of the cops’ involvement in the street life of a large city to the silver screen. Recently, the director also managed to surprise with ‘Shooter’, but for ‘Brooklyn’s Finest’ Fuqua remains close to the former, this time pitting Ethan Hawke against Richard Gere and Don Cheadle, among others. The result is yet another cop drama of stature – the film that his ‘Replacement Killers’ should have been: (un)realistically violent, uncompromising and gritty as hell.

The effective introduction knows exactly how to put away the characters that are outlined in the synopsis. The film opens with criminal Carlo (a small role by Vincent D’Onofrio) and agent Sal (Ethan Hawke) in a parked car in a deserted lot. From the course of the otherwise unimportant conversation, it can be concluded that Sal is in need of money, and that he does not shy away from breaking a law that he himself must enforce to address those problems. Cut to veteran Eddie (Richard Gere), who wakes up in the morning, pours a glass of whiskey and thinks about shooting himself in the head before he gets out of bed to start his last week before retirement. Cut to undercover cop Tango (Don Cheadle), who enters a parking lot of a flat in the Brooklyn Projects in a luxury BMW with several gang members, while there are enough drug dealers and police and ambulance personnel on hand to put you on a set of Spike Lee to imagine. The hectic setting shows that a young dealer was recently shot dead by a cop – a fact that wouldn’t look out of place in a Spike Lee film.

The structure of the film continues the interaction between these three main characters, as we follow them on the job during a grueling week. The storylines inevitably converge, but don’t get mixed up along the way. It gives you a better opportunity to empathize with the different characters, with Hawke in particular impressing. Sal is tempted daily to run off with drug money during raids in order to support his wife and seven (!) children. When it turns out that twins are also on the way, Sal begins to take more and more risks. Hawke knows how to process these internal tensions strongly in his character. Eddie, in turn, is paired up with a number of rookies to teach them the tricks of the trade during the last week of his service. That does not happen automatically with the veteran, played modestly by Gere, who now believes it at the NYPD in Brooklyn. The probably most interesting role is for Cheadle. His undercover agent Tango (detective Clarence Butler) has managed to make it to the top as an infiltrator, thanks to a friendship with local drug lord Caz (Wesley Snipes in a role he seems to have copied from Idris Elba in “The Wire” – a series that provided a number of cast members due to its setting). He is about to break through, in order to be able to get his PhD and put his grueling undercover existence to an end. However, his relationship with Caz, who once saved his life, plays tricks on him, causing the dividing line between good and evil to become increasingly gray. Does he lose sight of his duty?

‘Brooklyn’s Finest’ is an above-average strong police drama, which draws its strength not so much from a good story (which is not flawless), but from an excellent cast, an oppressive atmosphere and a completely uncompromising attitude of the director. When the situation slowly escalates, as if the sweltering New York summer is taking its toll on accountability (okay, last Spike Lee reference), Fuqua puts his three agents—as a metaphor for the Brooklyn justice system—under extreme socio-political pressure. and does not take half measures when the climax arrives. An action thriller that lingers, from the appealing first shot to long after the last bullet has been fired.