Movie and Television Reviews

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David Ayer wrote Street Kings and Training Day, both movies are about corrupt cops, and yes, both are destined to coexist within the shrink-wrapping of a Sam's Club two-pack; but although Keanu Reeves also has a hot Latina girlfriend, Denzel Washington is clearly taller.** As to their relative cinematic worth, Street Kings is a Geo Metro to TD's Toyota Corolla- essentially the same, but with cosmetic differences and less resale value.

Street Kings versus...

Training Day

Training Day

In Street Kings, Keanu Reeves is Detective Tom Ludlow, a loose-cannon cop who's more than willing to take a beating to bring down the bad guys. And bring them down he does. Like some feverish ACLU fantasy, Ludlow breaks into a room of child enslavers and immediately starts picking people off. Luckily, Jack Wander (Forest Whitacker), his task force commander, is there to cover up Ludlow's bloody mess.

Ludlow finds out that his former partner, Terrence Washington, may be snitching Ludlow's more colorful escapades to internal affairs and follows him to a liquor store to "break his jaw." Washington actually gets drilled by two suspects with assault rifles before Ludlow gets a shot at his jaw. Street Kings takes longer to die than Washington, but it's here that it starts to bleed.

For reasons not completely clear, Ludlow hooks up with homicide investigator Paul Diskant to avenge Washington's murder. Things happen (For the nerdiest plot summary since the Search for Spock seminar presenter at the 1983 Star Trek convention "happened upon" an advance script, go to Street Kings' Wiki entry.) and, if you've never seen this type of movie, you may be somewhat shocked by the ending.

Star Trek III - The Search for Spock (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)

For a person of moderate cinema sophistication, however, Street Kings will have succumbed to its wounds ten minutes before the final credits. The last confrontation is a talkative mess with out-of-character actions by all involved and unclever detective flourishes.

Keanu Reeves does fine, but I still get the sense that he's more of a MAD Magazine joke than a real actor. Forest Whitaker overacts.

Message/ Politics:

At one point, Internal Affairs investigator Captain Biggs admits that while society can never officially approve of Ludlow's methods, it needs men of Ludlow's ruthless effectiveness to keep order.

**Other similarities between the movies include a tense gangster-police confrontation inside the gangster's home and a police party.