Buy Street Kings - Cool Stuff to Own

Description: Gripping performances by Keanu Reeves, Academy AwardÂ(r) Winner Forest Whitaker* and an all-star supporting cast power this action-packed crime thriller, in which a veteran cop finds himself ensnared in a deadly web of conspiracy and betrayal. Reeves stars as Tom Ludlow, a hard-nosed detective with a talent for delivering brutal street justice. When evidence implicates him in the murder of a fellow officer, the violence around Ludlow explodes as he realizes his own life is in danger and he can trust no one.

Amazon.com: Street Kings is a pungent bouquet of corruption, violence, multi-ethnic mayhem, macho glee laced with macho angst, and fluorescently obscene dialogue from the mind of James Ellroy. Its hero, though he'd scarcely consent to be called one, is L.A. police detective Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves), for whom life is a wound that won't heal and dealing out retribution to scumbags is the ongoing treatment. Ludlow's the star player--"the tip of the [expletive] spear"--on a team of detectives headed by Capt. Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker). Coach Wander relies on his boys to keep breaking lurid cases, usually through deeply darkside underground work, and raising his profile with the media and the department. In pursuit of these goals, nothing is forbidden except failure, and the truth is what you make it look like. This is familiar Ellroy territory, most effectively translated to the screen in L.A. Confidential (which should have won the 1997 Oscar, and would have if Titanic hadn't launched that year). If you know Ellroy's ground game, you can pretty much guess where Street Kings is going, and where it's been. Still, the twists and torques of its urban road-rage course maintain the centrifugal force needed to hold us in our seats (a tactical highlight: refrigerator adapted as rolling barricade), and the movie keeps bopping us with oddball casting coups: comic Jay Mohr and Northern Exposure/Sex and the City veteran John Corbett as two members of Coach Warden's gonzo detective squad; Cedric the Entertainer doing a nicely nuanced turn as a street creature; Hugh Laurie doing a less-hyper version of House, if House worked Internal Affairs.

The problem is that director David Ayer keeps everything intense. Dialogues are shot too close-up, line readings are too strident, the action is too nonstop slam. Recall Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential and the mind's eye summons up a whole spectrum of existence, mood, place, historical period, emotional investment; there's an amplitude to the picture and the sensibility bringing it to us, something besides the whodunit and the endless rap sheet of nasty what-they-done. Everything in Street Kings is one-note, and with Keanu Reeves playing it implosive and Forest Whitaker locked in crazier-than-an-outhouse-rat mode, that's no way to stay the course. --Richard T. Jameson

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Customer Reviews:

Street Kings, so-so November 12, 2008
Predictable plot, a little overacting here and there. Not too bad. If you're into shooting you'll notice that Keanu's character has had a little training. I liked it overall.

Nice movie... November 5, 2008
This is the movie that i will recommend people who like simple action movie.

The picture and sound quality of the bluray version is superb!!!

Vintage Instrumentals October 27, 2008
I did not know if was possible for older music to come in CD form. The product was great and the timing perfect. The person I got it for is already playing it in her car everywhere she goes.

Surprisingly good...but not great October 22, 2008
The screen play written by James Ellroy is about a troubled cop, a dirty but effective unit in the troubled LAPD and of course corruption that goes (da da dum) ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. To paraphrase David Spade's Hollywood Minute - I liked it better the first time......when it was called "L. A. Confidential".

Still, if you like movies about cops and bad guys and don't want to watch LA Confidential again, this is a pretty good take on a story we never seem to get tired of watching. Its essentially the same story Ellroy has been writing since he began. Good cops trying to do the right thing in a bad world and having to answer the age old question "where does it all end? who polices the police?" At times I thought the story was going to devolve into a liberal PC morality lesson where the only bad guys are the cops and everyone else is an innocent victim, even the perps. Ellroy is too seasoned a writer to not give us a good story and a mystery. This movie may not be a classic and there's nothing really new here but it's a good re-telling of the troubled/dirty cop story.

And if that's the kind of thing you like, then you're going to like this kind of thing. Very watchable and engaging. The first extended sequence scene is particularly good starting with Keanu waking up and ending at the gang house. This seems to be a trademark of Ellroy in which the story is comprised of a sequence of gripping and compelling scenes and even though the ending maybe predictable, its a good ride.

Street Kings is a GREAT ACTION MOVIE! October 21, 2008
Very good movie, AAA star cast. This is a great action movie and keeps you guessing through the whole movie. I would recommend watching.

Street Kings

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