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This weeks film, caused a bit of a split opinion amongst our cinema group – no change there then!! Seriously, this weeks film STREET KINGS did create a bit of friendly banter within our group…..a couple of us rather enjoyed it, where as another two thought it was full of cop film cliches & over the top power lines/speeches that made Martin Luther King’s famous speech seem average!!

So why the difference of opinion?? The film follows veteran LAPD cop Detective Tom Ludlow (KEANU REEVES) who is top dog in underground police unit known as Vice Special, whose tactics of getting a result are ruthless….basically killing whoever gets in there way to get the real bad guys!! The chief of this group of cops is Captain Jack Wander (FOREST WHITAKER) who has the uncanny skill of covering up any wrong doing that may have been done & getting any investigations against his unit squashed…..However, their actions draw attraction from Internal Affairs & Captian James Biggs (HUGH LAURIE) watches their every move ready to bring them down!!

As you can imagine, things go a bit pear shaped when evidence implicates Detective Ludlow in the killing of a fellow officer….cue plenty of double crossing, back stabbing, suspicious activities & shooting!! Now I’m not going to give the whole plot away here, but this is where the difference of opinion started!!

We all agreed that Keanu is definately as wooden as an oak forest full of log cabins, we also agreed that the action scenes were pretty good & realistic, plus the story wasn’t too bad….the bit where we dis-agreed was the use of over the top of cop cliches & power one liners, such as: ‘ I did it for the team,’

‘How do you think you’re able to touch the untouchables’

‘I’m going to be chief. I will be chief! I will be man! This is our world….’

‘This is my power. This is my crown. I’m the king of secrets’

What happened to just locking up bad people? ‘
‘We’re all bad’
You were my best friend.’
‘We were family.’
 

Actually, the more I write these down & read them to myself, I kinda agree they do seem a bit cheesy……but they still don’t ruin the film for me!! Overall, I rather enjoyed the film & glad we saw it this week – well anything would have been better than watching 27 DRESSES!! My rating would be 7/10 – How about you?

My favourites were:

“This thing that you want, that you think you want, you don’t want it.”
“You don’t know what I want!”

“It’s time to turn the page and close the book.”

“You can’t ride the tiger forever.”

Load of old tut.

Oh, and:

“He bleeds blue!”

“Give me your burner!”

It wasn’t just the lines that were cliche, there were whole scenes that were cliche. In places I honestly think I could have guessed the next line. You had the:

Oh no they shot my partnet scene

The “your an alcoholic cop” scene

The “They got the rookie” scene

In fact I think if you picked any scene that appears in all the classic cop movies you would find it in this one, badly acted by a lump of wood.

Action scenes were cool though.

[...] go straight to DVD is beyond me.  If you don’t believe me about the script, just read some of the quotes aloud (particularly the ones from Captain Jack Wander) and you’ll see what I [...]