What if, in Training Day, Denzel Washington’s rule-breaking cop had been the good guy? That’s kind of the premise of this dramatic thriller directed by the writer of that movie, David Ayer, and boasting L.A. Confidential novelist James Ellroy as one of its three credited screenwriters. Perhaps Denzel could have lifted up this tale of an LAPD cop, played instead by the overemployed Keanu Reeves. In the opening, Reeves’s rogue singlehandedly busts up some kidnappers and doesn’t bother with making arrests. He places a gun in the criminal’s hand to cover his tracks, but his accommodating superior officer (Forest Whitaker) knows what’s up. Worse, an internal affairs guy (Hugh Laurie) seems to be on to his ethical corner-cutting, and when he coincidentally winds up the only survivor in a convenience-store shoot-em-up, he faces an apparent choice between solving the crime and saving his own skin.
The rogue winds up at a desk job listening to citizen complaints about police abuse. Whatever dramatic possibilities there are from having the law-violating cop hear other stories of law-violating cops are not explored. In the end, suggests the movie, the system needs some rough justice to function properly, but the other side isn’t really presented. Moreover, the storyline borders on ludicrous, and extravagent violence, as in the absurd convenience-store machine-gun fiesta, substitutes for true grit. Fans of tricky plots and periodic shootouts may be satisfied, but compare this to the much more stylish L.A. Confidential to see how much better a movie like this can be. Call it L.A., conventional.
IMDB link
viewed 4/12/08; reviewed 4/17/08
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