Street Kings (2008)

Other than Curtis Hanson’s 1997 elegant page-to-screen translation of James Ellroy’s novel “L.A. Confidential,” the movies have generally failed to capture the true tone and texture of Mr. Ellroy's dark places. Certainly that’s the case with David Ayer’s absurd if accidentally entertaining potboiler, “Street Kings,” based on a story by Mr. Ellroy, who also shares screenwriting credit with Kurt Wimmer and Jamie Moss. Keanu Reeves plays Detective Tom Ludlow, a prime cut of beef who’s part of a cultish, multicultural wrecking crew run by the silkily smooth Capt. Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker). A loner by violent disposition and tragic (dead wife) history, Tom bursts into the film, breaking any number of laws, and immediately enters a hell on earth (that would be Los Angeles) with bullets, blood, shattered bone and underage sex slaves. Good times! More seriously, and this is nothing if not a deeply serious movie (I think), there are nothing but bad times ahead, with even more blood — smeared, splattered, splashed and sprayed — mixed in with vivid night photography, thumping tunes, boyz in the hood, ornamental women, casual racist insults and a lot of manly shouting. Mr. Ayer, who wrote “Training Day” and directed “Harsh Times,” invests his work with palpable energy — his films feel urgent and at times, interestingly, close to desperate — but he has next to no idea how to control or channel all that manic intensity.

— Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

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