Brooklyn’s Finest [Blu-ray] ReviewsBrooklyn’s Finest [Blu-ray]
Something of a genre homecoming, Antoine Fuqua’s latest film once again finds him delving into the gritty, brutal realm of cops and crooks—as he did in Training Day. Tango is an undercover officer on a narcotics detail that forces him to choose between duty and friendship. Having been to hell and back, he wants out, but the powers that be won’t let him quit. Family-man Sal is a detective tempted by greed and corruption. He can barely make ends meet, and now his wife has an illness that threate
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(out of 13 reviews)
Review by Terence Allen for Brooklyn’s Finest [Blu-ray]
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“Brooklyn’s Finest” is a remarkably entertaining and well-acted police drama from director Antoine Fuqua, who also directed the also outstanding police drama, “Training Day.”
The film focuses on three very different Brooklyn cops over the course of a week. Richard Gere plays Eddie, a hardened veteran just a week away from retirement. He has nightmares, he’s separated from his wife, and he’s just biding his time until his retirement. Ethan Hawke, the hero of “Training Day, plays a narcotics detective desperate to finance a new home to give a better life to his wife, children, and twins on the way. Don Cheadle plays Tango, an undercover cop, who is so deep undercover that he forgets who he really is, and to make matters worse, he now has to setup a high-level drug dealer who saved his life while he was undercover in prison.
These examples of Brooklyn’s Finest are all living on the edge, and they all go over the edge one way or another. The acting from these three is superb. Their performances along with Wesley Snipes as the drug dealer, Brian F. O’Byrne as Hawkes’ best friend and partner, Shannon Kane as Eddie’s hooker with a heart of gold, and a number of others, make this a very enjoyable, but powerfully sad and tragic film.
Review by Compay for Brooklyn’s Finest [Blu-ray]
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It’s been almost a decade since Director Antoine Fuqua treated us to Training Day, and Brooklyn’s Finest proves that he still has the goods. While not destined to become the fan classic that Denzel helped deliver, Brooklyn’s Finest offers up an excellent cast and an explosive ending.
Don Cheadle, as an undercover cop, gives a terrific performance while continuing to prove himself as one of Hollywood’s most underrated actors. It was also amazing to watch Ethan Hawke as a corrupt officer, but unlike Training Day’s Alonzo, you really feel his vulnerability. He’s thrown into a pressure cooker early into the film, with tension so real that you can almost touch it. If you’re a diehard fan of HBO’s The Wire like myself, you’re going to love the casting of Michael K. Williams (Omar Little) and Hassan Johnson (Wee-Bey) as Brooklyn dealers, and Isiah Whitlock Jr (Senator Clay “Sheeee*t” Davis) as a city investigator. Wesley Snipes gives a great New Jack City throwback performance as drug kingpin Caz. Richard Gere plays the role of a weathered cop to perfection, despite being handed a script filled with one too many police flick cliches.
Brooklyn’s Finest starts especially slow, but really picks up steam past the film’s halfway mark. The cinematography and directing are both on point, and Fuqua’s use of lighting is excellent. Brazilian composer Marcelo Zarvos (Sin Nombre) did a great job with the score, and the rest of the soundtrack fits perfectly (particularly the Busta Rhymes track during a stash house raid). And like The Wire, police bureaucracy is exposed, corruption is revealed, and the streets take no prisoners.
The film gets four stars instead of five, simply because there are one too many cliches, and the “Crash” concept isn’t anything new. But while the plot is at times implausible and not terribly exciting, the intertwining of characters leading up to the film’s conclusion is grim and powerful. Not the best film of 2010, but don’t miss this one if you enjoy The Wire.
Review by Dr. Feel for Brooklyn’s Finest [Blu-ray]
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Brooklyn’s Finest is about three cops working in different units in the NYC police department, who struggle with the perils of the crime-infested streets, particularly the drug trafficking operations.
Ethan Hawke delivers probably his best performance to date. He plays Sal Procida, a NYPD narcotics officer who’s a devout Catholic with mostly good intentions, but is plagued with his own demons as he chases after ruthless drug dealers while struggling to support more kids at home than he can afford on a cop’s salary.
Don Cheadle plays the role of “Tango”, an ambitious undercover cop working double-duty on a drug sting operation. He’s burned out and wants out of the game before it’s too late, but he’s in too deep and the powers that be on the corrupt police force won’t let him escape. Ellen Barkin plays the hard-ass boss lady in charge of the sting operation. She has Cheadle by the balls and couldn’t care less about his survival.
Richard Gere plays Officer Dugan, a washed-out, suicidal veteran cop who is just a week away from retirement. His goal (aside from enjoying the services of a certain “professional” whom he likes more than he should) is to maintain his sanity, keep his nose clean and keep his rookie cop partner under control for just a few more days so that he can cash in on his pension with a little pride. But as it turns out, his last week on the job is probably the worst of his entire career.
Wesley Snipes returns to the big screen as the smart, ruthless drug lord “Caz” running the streets of Brooklyn. He’s been in the game for too long as well and appears to be losing his “street cred”, as he doesn’t know who to trust anymore. His most trusted partner however, happens to be Tango who, unbeknownst to Caz, is working undercover to bust his operation.
Brooklyn’s Finest tells a graphic story about each of these characters and the double lives and personal struggles that each one has to deal with on a daily basis. All three are “fine” cops in their own way, but the demands of their dangerous jobs, in a corrupt world, gets the best of them. Neither cop knows the other one, but their fate is ultimately intertwined.
This movie starts out quite slow but it eventually progresses into a very good film. This is a serious cop drama that is very raw in its portrayal of crime and corruption on the mean urban streets. It contains certain elements of other movies, such as “Training Day”, “New Jack City”, “American Gangster” and “Crash” all meshed together into one powerful movie.
The casting and acting are superb, but the story leaves nothing to the imagination and exploits stereotypes to the max. Highly recommended, nonetheless.
WARNINIG: Contains graphic sexual content, extreme violence and profanity. Not for the easily offended!
Review by Mohamed F. El-Hewie for Brooklyn’s Finest [Blu-ray]
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I assume the title “New York’s Finest” was avoided for trademark conflict. The “finest” motto is the subject of ridicule, as those poor cops have nothing [fine] going for them on any front. The Ex-NYC Police Chief Bernard Kerik’s imprisonment is an example of the ugliness of working in a bureaucratically corrupt system. The charisma, ultimate sacrifice in securing, protecting, and helping society to conform to law and order, are rewarded with the ultimate despair of each policeman’s family, poor health, contempt to their exceptional commitments by government officials, and suspicion and mistrust of the public.
On its façade, the policemen are given figurative lip service and glorified for political gains. In reality, the policemen are left to the perils of excessive and outmatching fire power of criminals and drug dealers, the shear number of unemployed, uneducated, and troubled citizens, and the endless and complicated social decay. The profiteers are the career-thirsty state-officials, sitting on their Mahogany, shinning desks, isolated from the reality of urban warfare.
Every fine cop portrayed in the movie, and fits perfectly real life scenario, is exposed to the ultimate death, yet compensate hourly and on overtime basis. Most cops work irregular shifts, smoke, and stressed to the end, could not support their family, and resort to prostitution to fill their missing human needs. Furthermore, the perfect kids of this great Country of ours, who were raised to glorify the saintship of being on the right-side of the law, such as cops, are faced with the reality of political corruption that serves state officials.
On the other side, the movie displays the endless blood battles that claim the lives of many innocent blacks, whose only crime was possessing, dealing, or using drugs. Not as if the government cares about eradicating drugs from society, since that requires creating economic situation conducive to financial security, but because state officials could play the PR game of staying in office and gaining more power. Most of the dead and dying, poor blacks, have no access to opportunities or any glimpse of hope that could brighten their future.
The movie succeeded in questioning the rationale of trusting the government to solve any social or economic problem without the creative and proactive role of the public in holding its governments accountable in making and enforcing laws that could do good to the people.
Review by Ellen C. Maze for Brooklyn’s Finest [Blu-ray]
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This movie was more an instructive ‘week in the life’ story. We saw a week in the life of three of Brooklyn’s finest.
Gere was a week from retirement after 22 years, saddled with rookies and suffering from chronic apathy.
Cheadle was an undercover cop deeply ensconced with the drug trade and desperately longing to leave that depressing assignment make detective.
And with a wife and 5 children (two on the way) Hawke was barely making ends meet working vice.
Yes, it was violent, graphic and disturbing, but realistic and never gratuitous. Also, a revelation for you–this movie does not glorify violence, the sex trade, drug dealers, or bad cops. The only thing glorified in this movie is FAMILY and DUTY. And that’s a positive thing.
When I left the theater, I had a deep admiration for the folks in these tough (nay, impossible) jobs.
All of the acting was top notch and I expect Oscar nods for all three main players.
Signed Ellen C Maze, author Rabbit: Chasing Beth Rider
Vampire fiction for the discerning reader