Brooklyn’s Finest? Well, not so fine.
This new cop-gangster movie directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Shooter) fails to deliver.
Finest is a mix of clichéd cop movies mixed into one horrendous mix of a movie. It follows the lives of three cops in the New York City Police Department and the struggles they all face. A subplot is the drug game that takes place in New York City.
The movie unfolds with each cop under pressure in his own way to do what is right. The movie is basically three movies in one. The film jumps around between the three characters as they lead separate but ultimately connected lives. All three cops’ courses eventually lead them to the same ending location but with three different finales to their days on the force.
Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda, Ocean’s Eleven) plays Tango, the undercover cop struggling to keep his cool. Cheadle should be ashamed that he is in this movie. He is a good actor in a role that he should not be playing. Tango spends most of the time driving around in his BMW or demanding to be taken out of his tension rising position as an undercover drug kingpin. It is just hard to watch Paul Rusesabagina (character played by Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda) play gangster and shoot people. It is just not the role that Cheadle is made for. In the last scene of the movie you see Cheadle shoot down two gangsters. The scene was overacted and poorly shot. Cheesy lines come out of his mouth that should never be spoken.
Richard Gere (Pretty Woman, Chicago) is the cop just trying to get by. Gere plays Officer Eddie Dugan who is only seven days away from retirement. Dugan is a burned out officer who is ready to retire. Dugan doesn’t care about being police anymore just trying to make it to the end. (Another actor in a role he shouldn’t be in.) Gere is known for playing in those funny romantic comedies and has no place in this movie. In one of the worst scenes in a movie, Dugan attempts to redeem his character by saving prostitutes from a sure death.
Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Assault on Precinct 13) is the cop desperate to support his family. Hawke plays Detective Sal Procida, a narcotics cop who would do anything for his family. With more kids than he can handle and a wife who gets sick from the house they live in, Sal must buy a new house before he loses his family all together. Frantic to get money for the down payment for a new house, Sal is willing to cut corners to get as much money as possible. It doesn’t matter if the money comes from drug dealer, for him the end justifies the means. Hawke is the only actor of the three cops that is in the right role. Still he sucks it up with some of the worst acting that has come from a pretty successful career.
The only redeemable actor in the movie is Wesley Snipes (Blade Series) who portrays Caz, a drug lord fresh out of jail and looking for redemption. Snipes does a good job with the character and accurately shows the inner struggles of Caz, a character tossed back into the drug game but who has had a change in heart since being in jail. The only reason to even think about seeing this movie is because of Caz but still not even worth it.
Hard cops and thugs, worse actors. Cheesy lines, bad acting and a weak plot destroy a movie that had the potential to be good.
Running time 140 min. being shown at the Palladium.
