We rented this mostly because my wife thinks Keanu Reeves is hot. I was excited because it wasn't one of the horrible, sappy love movies he comes out with.
Reeves plays Tom Ludlow, widowed recently, drinking heavily, a fearnothing cop. Forrest Whitaker is his boss, who watchs out for him, and keeps him out of trouble. Jay Mohr, Amaury Nolasco, and John Corbett round out the rest of the elite vice squad that Ludlow is a part of.
But somebody is snitching on them, and when this person is gunned down, right before Ludlow was going to give him an asskicking, all hell breaks loose.
Now generally I'm all over Keanu Reeves for his acting. He is good in certain roles. I like him speaking very little, with an air of mystery about him. See Constantine. This too was a good role for him. When he keeps away from emoting, he's in good shape.
Forrest Whitaker was incredible as usual. He bounces from hard ass to good guy better than anyone. You know, I don't think I've ever seen him in a role where he didn't go all out, or was bad. And this is no exception.
Naomie Harris and Martha Higareda play the wife of Washington, and Ludlow's girlfriend. Both gorgeous ladies, and both did a fine job acting. Especially Harris. You may recognize her from the Pirates series, she's great, and gorgeous.
I liked the script for the most part. It moved along well, and only got muddled in a few points. The one odd part was that they introduced a few characters about 2/3's of the way through, and it felt like an idea filler, that they went somewhere, and couldn't explain why.
The bad points were Jay Mohr's mustache. Horrible.
There was a part of the script, for about 20 minutes, that just sort of popped in, and cleared up some things, but it felt like they were cheating to do it. They didn't really develop realistically how they got there, but they did, then got back on track.
Looking back, the script wasn't too inventive, but hid where they were going well, so you didn't get bored, or started looking for things.
Cedric the Entertainer played a player in the movie. He wasn't in it long, but he played a street hustler/drug dealer. I like Cedric on stage dancing. I like Cedric telling jokes. I like Cedric entertaining. He doesn't.
But overall, I found it very entertaining. I'd like to watch it again, so I can see it, and maybe see if I missed some of the plot. I will definitely buy it.
I'll give it an 8 out of 10. It moved fast, kept you watching, and you get to see Forrest Whitaker act.
