Gesetz der Strasse - Brooklyn's Finest

Very well made with that gritty feel to it that Antoine Fuqua is renowned for. A decent score by Marcelo Zarvos, interspersed with rap and other 'street' tunes sets the tone. All the performances were excellent; in particular Richard Gere as the world-weary Eddie, Don Cheadle as the street-wise Tango and Ethan Hawke as the up-tight Sal. Wesley Snipes did a great job too as Cal, as did Brían F. O'Byrne as Sal's partner, Ronnie Rosario. Also worthy of note were; Will Patton as Lt. Bill Hobarts, Michael Kenneth Williams as Red, Shannon Kane as Chantel and Ellen Barkin as Agent Smith. Oh, and look out for a nice little cameo from Vincent D'Onofrio as Carlo.

I must say that the critics must have had a bad day or something when they reviewed this one. I'm usually pretty much in agreement with them, but I think they missed a trick here. Yes, the three threads don't tie together in a neat bow but they're not supposed to; that's life, it doesn't always go the way you want it to (seldom does actually). The performances are great and there are some really superb visual moments too. I liked the plot, yes, maybe a little haphazard here and there, but not as bad as some would have you believe. For me, well worth a look… RECOMMENDED.

My Score 7.1/10

IMDb Score: 6.7/10 (based on 32,232 votes at the time of going to press).

MetaScore: 43/100: (Based on 33 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: 42/100 (based on 140 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 47/100 'Liked It' (based on 98,882 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).

You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

Brooklyn's Finest rests on the strong character portrayals of the lives of three ordinary men struggling at different points in their careers. What they each share is the New York Police Department as a workplace.

Life isn't perfect - it never is. We always have to give something up in order to do something else - it's called choice. Therein lies man's fatal freedom.

Sal (Ethan Hawke) gave up the possibility for flash when he became a cop. He has a growing family with numerous kids but lives in a decrepit, run-down house where the wood mold is causing his pregnant wife lung problems. His NYPD salary isn't sufficient for him to move to a different abode.

Can we judge him? It is a context that bears for some humanity from our part. He will do things in the film, but it is difficult for us to point our fingers from a high horse, for we aren't in his situation. Does the end justify the means?

While doing undercover work in prison, Tango (Don Cheadle) is saved from death by an inmate, Casanova Philips (Wesley Snipes). The event forms a bond between them. Now Casanova is back out and the force want Tango to send him back in.

By taking this shortcut to Detective first grade (read: becoming an undercover agent), Tango is forced to deal with harsh consequences, namely the fact that his wife is in the process of leaving him, and that other than Casanova he has no friends.

Eddie (Richard Gere) is retiring and is a morally decadent seemingly useless member of the force. He gets teased by his younger co-worker cops, and seems fed up with his life. We see him put a revolver to his mouth in the morning.

Even though he is 7 days away from retirement he must take care of young rookies, fresh faces new to the NYPD. Eddie doesn't get along well with them.

It is unclear what happened to his wife, but Eddie now seeks solace in the womanly comforts of a lowly Chinatown hooker.

These grotesquely authentic lives are laid out with the aid of a soundtrack that simultaneously sets the pace and follows the psychological states of the main protagonists. The tone of the music will change, for instance, when a particular character is in a tight situation, a situation where he is again confronted with choice.

All the actors in this film pull off magnificently intense portrayals. Especially worthy of mention are Cheadle, Snipes, Gere and Hawke -- who once again shows that he can enter the mind of a struggling cop like no other.

A steady-paced, involving thriller definitely worth a gander. 8/10.

Brooklyn's Finest explores the underbelly of police work in some of the most unbecoming neighborhoods. Three police officers who have no connection to one another are going through their own personal crises, until they end up at the same place, at the wrong time.

Richard Gere rehashes his police character role albeit in less than flattering circumstances. This time he's a cop without illusions. He's completing his 22 years on the job and has no expectations about his service or the life awaiting him after retirement. Perhaps his crowning glory is his achievement after retirement.

Don Cheadle another officer is deeply embedded in the drug world. He's being asked to do more than he's prepared to do and eventually he loses his sense of identity. There are only gray lines in this film; everything is marred by malfeasance, violence and scandal.

Ethan Hawke is a man on a path to destruction. His wife is sickly and about to give birth to twins. The house is too small and he can't provide for his family's needs on a cop salary. He takes on more dangerous drug busts and eventually is consumed by his own corruption.

The film is high quality, albeit unrealistic. It glorifies the handgun and over-emphasizes several themes, but it does a good job at captivating viewers' attention

Draws you right in from the start, builds tension to a climactic point late in the film. In the middle, you get to absorb a lot of NYC atmosphere which somewhat compensates for the formulaic nature of the film. You've seen it all before, there's no new ground, but its done in a way that will hold your interest.

Grim, adult movie themes highlight only the heavy issues that burden cops in this big city.

Cheadle, Hawke and Gere all develop very burnt-out, empty looks in their eyes that help make this film more believable than it really is. Lives have fallen apart (the personal lives of these cops). The script makes it clear that the job is rough on cop families, it makes this point almost to the point of overkill.

The women of this film are resigned to the belief that "its a man's world". They have bought this belief system almost totally. And yes I include Ellen Barkin's middle-aged super-boss-cop because she tries to be just like men in order to get to the top of this man's macho cop world/underworld environment.

Gere is subtle, very nuanced and effective in his role. Hawke is incredibly explosive in his role of a man desperately overstrung, or at least in need of a good vacation. Cheadle's mixed-up about-to-snap performance works perfectly with Snipes who gives a fine, mature, theatrical style performance. I'm ready to see more of the mature Snipes as his career progresses.

All the acting here is great and it overcomes the generally "seen it before" nature of the production. This is basically similar to Greek tragedy, so if you view it that way you won'be let down by the relentless grimness that is here from start to finish.

Entertainment value highlighted by enough tension, plus the studied pro performances rate an 8 rating from me.

Brooklyn's Finest tells three respective tales of a trio of very different people more broadly connected to the police force of New York City; three people who each alike want 'out' of their respective lives and lifestyles within the force, three people who live and operate in very different capacities therein the force, but look forward to the new ventures and pastures to follow thereafter their leaving. The film is a masterstroke of crime drama storytelling, a film whose runtime is never too long and whose sheer scale is never overwhelming; a film whose ability to balance each strand, ranging from everyday 'on-the-beat' cops to undercover narcotics agents, is close to faultless. As far as American thrillers that may or may not contain a good deal of second unit stuff go, it is a breath of fresh air; an appealing, story driven piece with any one of its three strands most likely making decent enough features on their own.

Director Antoine Fuqua establishes the uncompromising characteristics that dominate the nature of his film's world during the opening scene, an exchange set in the confines of a parked car in the dead of night. One man speaks to another about how he was justified in recently breaking the law out of self defence. The other man, Ethan Hawke's Detective named Sal Procida, then proceeds to shoot him dead, but only for the large amount of ill-gotten money he had with him – something which will ease his financial woes made apparent out of his unhealthy wife and large family who're all living in a building unfit for them. Above anything else, it is a perfect opening to Procida's strand; a strand built on moral grey areas and he loots and kills for sake of someone else's struggles. Waking up not so far away is Richard Gere's character, he too is a police officer named Eddie Dugan; a single man who sleeps with whisky beside his bed and unloads an empty pistol into his mouth upon getting up. The man is not far from retirement and in a bad state. Finally, Don Cheadle is an undercover narcotics agent named "Tango" Butler; a man deep in the world of housing project-set, African American run drug rings whose efficiency and professionalism is epitomised in a slick, singular take as the camera glides through their interior base of operations from the quasi perspective of Cheadle himself.

Fuqua toys with his audience in so much he allows for the least intelligent; least likable and probably most aggressive of the three, in Procida, to want what's best for other people moreover himself. In providing this character with a family, it allows for Hawke's character to occupy the screen without risk of our interest or fondness for the man waning; it allows for his story to play out without the danger of it transferring into an anonymous, bland tale of an anti-hero undeserving of his job title going through the motions. That's not to say his is the best of the three, for Butler's story about working undercover and the apparent brethren he shares with those shady delinquents, as relationships with his police superiors wane, is often shattering. Wanting away from this life of constant fear and danger, he learns the only way to do such a thing is to bring in the boss of the entire outfit: Wesley Snipes' gangster named Caz.

The reemergence of Snipes is a curious detail, a man who himself has recently served time in prison and here plays someone who is fresh out and back amongst his kin anyway. Seeing him turn up carries with it an odd air of realism: as if akin to his character suddenly reappearing amidst his own here on set, so too is Caz the wanted man who can finally be nailed by a federal department if Butler plays it right. In this regard, the casting is a masterstroke, and it is impressive that the sudden reappearance of the actor does not soften the impact of the film up to this point nor beyond it.

There are thoughts and writings that, in recent years, and something born out of the events of 9/11 in New York City, those more broadly orientated towards jobs in the fire department or police force often always come in for heroic depictions when featuring in American films. Some, the likes of Ladder 49 and such, have almost exclusively revolved around said folk in said roles. Jim Sheridan's 2010 remake of a Danish film entitled "Brothers" inexplicably featured a composition of a fire station façade during its opening montage, a shot you might say was designed, sub-consciously or otherwise, to implement both a sad and romanticised tone from the off. The film is not about firemen – far from it, but it's meant to induce melancholia what better way than to exploit the iconography of a fire station. If you want to see it in this particular way, you might read Fuqua's film as a piece going past all of that and cutting to the grit of the thing: a New York City-set project about those in roles depicted in less than flattering ways and living less than heroic lifestyles where previously we've witnessed otherwise. However you might see it, the film is a more than substantial effort .