For the duration of its grim two-hour ride, “Brooklyn’s Finest” is on to something in the vein of “Training Day,” “The Departed” and dash of “Crash.” It is a frenetic and tough police drama that puts the lives of three nearly burnt-out cops on a bloody collision course.
While director Antoine Fuqua’s film is far from fine, his cast of men on the edge – Ethan Hawke, Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes – each deserve kudos for holding nothing back in their performances.
Hawke’s Sal is a member of the Brooklyn Police Department’s drug enforcement unit. A devout Catholic, he prides himself on being the patriarch in a growing family. They need to move and he needs cash for a down payment, so he steals money from drug dealers.
Gere’s Eddie is a uniform officer a week away from retirement. Never a standout on the job, he plans to finish up his last seven days as nondescript as always. His only joy is the hooker he frequently visits and the shot of whiskey he shoots back every morning.
Cheadle’s Tango has been sent undercover to infiltrate the city’s drug gang. He’s a man so embedded with the kingpin Caz (Snipes) that he’s lost his life and wife. He’s ready to explode.
The film, from a cliched script riddled with ever cop-drama convention by first-timer Michael C. Martin, has an inescapable feeling of been there and done that. There’s also a lot of mindless violence manufactured that does nothing to advance the story but serves as a cover to the holes in the plot. Especially the high body count ending, which was a total Martin Scorsese rip-off. Ultimately, though, the film collapses into a series of predictable scenarios. Someone in that car in the opening scene will die and you can bet the house that the rookie cop will screw up and that sooner or later there will be a dose or two of redemption dished out.
It’s too bad Fuqua cops out to the gratuitous bloodshed. When he eases up on the gunfire, the film has some far more powerful quieter interactions where you glimpse a different side of these men for a fleeting moment. Shannon Kane is sultry and seductive as Eddie’s prostitute who hung religious icons all over her dingy apartment. Lili Taylor (“Public Enemies”) is affecting as always as Sal’s sickly and devoted wife. Cheadle’s eyes staring intently and longingly at a photo of his wife speak volumes.
