New York has a reputation as being a compelling backdrop for films about policemen, heroic or otherwise. Law enforcement officials in a New York-set film usually find themselves digging deep to govern a city of criminals more ruthless and bloodthirsty by the day, and the annals of film history are filled with legendary names like Serpico and Popeye Doyle, good cops with questionable methods immortalized by their strong source material. None of the cops in “Brooklyn’s Finest” would make that roster. They are jittery, nervous, flawed types, either on the take, too deep undercover, or simply unwilling to commit to their job. Ideally you’d have three separate movies involving these characters, and with enough fleshing out, there’s a chance at that old cop movie immortality. “Brooklyn’s Finest” accepts the challenge of making them all relevant, both to ourselves and to each other by casting each in a single chess match, allowing the characters to play off each other as they struggle with their own perfunctory demons.
Tango, meanwhile, has lost himself in undercover work. Time spent in the ‘hood has rendered him a sidekick, both to the muscular veteran Caz (Wesley Snipes – good to see you back, Blade) and to the agents he has to answer to, inexperienced suits constantly promising a way out. As played by the somber Don Cheadle, Tango has a reservoir of humanity and trust that he sees being exploited, which is no doubt augmented by what other thugs see as a weakness and, we’ll submit, an actorly approach to the language of the streets. Cheadle’s never really been too convincing as a contemporary inner city type, and in a set of do’rags and sweatpant combos, it certainly sticks out.
Most rewarding is the storyline involving Eddie, a career cop about to retire from a thoroughly unremarkable career. Despite being played by the handsome Richard Gere, Eddie is as unglamorous as screen cops get, a 9-to-5’er just trying to get through the day, thoroughly uninterested in playing the hero or, god forbid, breaking protocol. When he has to train a couple of ambitious rookies in his last week, their idealism clashes with his ornery self-absorption.
Eddie’s storyline is the most rewarding, in that it’s uncommon that films get it right, the concept of the inward careerist just trying to make it through the day, an existence that has lasted twenty-two years at the start of the film. His retirement won’t be greeted with a celebration or a ceremony, merely a handing over of the badge and gun and a chance at a retirement package. It’s unfortunate, then, that “Brooklyn’s Finest” has to overplay its hand, with all three storylines converging in a bloody showdown where the participants aren’t necessarily involved, but are all forced to take arms. The Eddie narrative seems dragged into this confrontation inorganically, resulting in the least satisfying payoff.
The other stories work intermittenly. The relationship between Tango and Caz is meant to have lasted for a significant amount of time, but despite word of one saving the other’s life, there’s no real concept as to how much each is willing to sacrifice for the other. When the feds pressure Tango to build a seemingly flimsy case against Caz, it’s not clear as to whether Tango is perturbed that he has to betray his friend, or that the government now appears to be pulling his strings. Moreover, Cheadle makes Tango seem too smart to have been used for this long, and his stalemate with the stubborn Lt. Hobarts (Will Patton, trying on more than one accent at points) seems to suggest that the streets are weighing on him, even though his associates aren’t seen doing more than hoarding drugs, playing video games and sulking at clubs.
Sal’s story, meanwhile, falls under the weight of Hawke’s characterization. Always with a deeper reserve of tragedy, the inevitable is always around the corner for an Ethan Hawke character. Hawke simply plays the tortured aspect of his character up to 11, though the story can’t keep up with it, short-changing Sal’s Christian beliefs and his relationship with the underworld — memorably established by a strong opening where he listens to a lowlife’s philosophies before murdering him and sulking away with his drug money.
Antoine Fuqua is a filmmaker who has seemed lost in the studio world. He showed pop-art action promise with the hit-and-miss debut “The Replacement Killers” but since then has dabbled in genre gruel, his reputation buoyed by his one hit, the ridiculous “Training Day.” In ways, “Brooklyn’s Finest” feels like the natural corrective to that film, with it’s real sociological bent (which would have been sadly fresher in a pre-“The Wire” world, as Michael K. Williams‘ presence reminds us) and believable economic background. The NYPD offices of the characters are cramped and uncomfortable, the walls littered with endless paper clippings and newspaper articles, while Sal’s Brooklyn dwellings look best suited to a two person set-up, not a family of seven. Eddie relaxes with frequent visits to a local prostitute, who entertains visitors from her own twenty-by-ten apartment barely lit by a flourescent bulb. None of the places feel grotesque or uncomfortable, but all feel like by-products of a life of just getting by, a subtle reality most movies about cops never bother with.
As is, consider us onboard again with Fuqua, a director we’ve long written off. “Brooklyn’s Finest” is a casualty of over-reaching, and it’s delicate narrative balance requires a cohesive, satisfying ending, a landing the film just cannot stick. However, the world Fuqua creates, and the narrative he holds sway over, has plenty of rewards, and the characters are lived-in, real people that fans of this genre would like to see more of. “Brooklyn’s Finest” is probably the best work of Fuqua’s career, though we do hope it is eclipsed a few more times. [B-]