Man, this is one grim story. Brooklyn is bad enough to start with. Gone are the days of joking about Brooklyn accents or the Dodgers or enjoying Coney Island. Now it's darkness, drugs, and danger.The narrative cuts back and forth between three mostly unrelated stories. Richard Gere is an old timer about to retire and doesn't bother to discharge his duties in a moral way. Don Cheadle is an honest undercover cop who has old friends in the hood and is tempted to betray one of them in return for a promotion. Ethan Hawke, who overacts outrageously, is a religious family man in serious financial trouble who decides to murder and rob a gang of drug dealers so his wife can have their twins safely in some leafy suburb.Two of them break the law, one out of a desire for vengeance, the other for pecuniary reasons. They pay for their transgressions. The one who survives has nothing in particular to live for.The performances are all of professional caliber, except I wish Ethan Hawke could have stopped acting as if he were just coming down from battery acid or something. Odd expressions and sniffing during pauses -- that's John Malkovitch's territory.The direction by Fuqua is functional and generally avoid the stylish and unnerving shaky camera of the average action flick. Some borrowings from Martin Scorsese and Alfred Hitchcock may be observed.It's a movie that really gets down in the dirt, with enough action to keep action fans' attention, but also with less violent but equally emotional issues -- a man's love for a professional prostitute, allegiances torn apart by circumstances, that sort of thing.

I got inspired to talk like a gangster while I watched this, as it has quite a lot of gangster lingo.Nawmsayin'? You know, I found this movie right here to be like, you know, it's like entertaining and sh*t, but it's nothing special nawmsayin'?It prolly won't get stuck up in yo' head like a hot slug, seemsayin? But it's aait, B. It's aait.OK, seriously. This movie is pretty entertaining. The acting is good, it's nicely paced. The action is solid. I like the sound design. Good, crisp, shooting sounds and what not.I do got some beef with the plot, though. I appreciate what they're trying to do here, but it's just a little too much. Some of the stuff that happens make you think like, damn, those are some major ass coincidences! It's just not believable. And that's not something I'm usually bothered by, but since this is supposed to be realistic and grimy, it kind of pulls you out a little. Now, it is cool to see each main characters "story", and it is rather engaging, but the story as a whole is just a little hard to swallow. There are also some, how to put it, inconsistencies with some of the characters. Not that much, but enough for me to notice. Anyway, you can do a lot worse than this, but there are better alternatives out there too. At the moment I got a thing for these kinds of movies, cops, gangsters, corruption, the works, and I think "Street Kings" is a way better movie. Although not totally the same. "Training Day" is also an obvious pick. And I like "Sabotage" too.

Richard Gere , Ethan Hawke , Don Cheadle, Will Patton, Wesley Snipes, and more that I am forgetting , wow what a star packed lineup, the story is based on 3 cops,, one with 7 days to go till retirement, and somehow they find themselves at a scene of a crime all together,, this is a story of I guess you could say, good cops and bad cops,, what would you do kind of thing,, each cop has a moral dilemma to face, our black officer wants out of undercover, and request a desk job,, our older officer , has to train a rookie, lot's of blood, guts, killing, mystery, thrills,, moral questions each cop has to answer, I won't say which or any of the cops will make it out alive in this picture you will just have to watch and see. great action movie.

Another 'corrupt cop' thriller, of which there are so many these days. This one's directed by Antoine Fuqua, who made TRAINING DAY with Denzel Washington, so he has some experience in the genre.BROOKLYN'S FINEST, while telling a complex and inventive story, never grabbed me the way it should have done. It may be because the production is just too miserable for its own good. The whole film takes place in darkness and even in the daylight scenes, the faces of the actors are shadowed.The relentlessly downbeat script and frequent moments of harsh violence add to the overall experience, which is depressing. The tropes and themes that all been explored many times previously and, while the film certainly keeps you watching, I didn't come away from it feeling awed or wowed in the same way I did watching STREET KINGS.Still, the acting is strong, especially from Richard Gere who plays a VERY different character from those in his rom-coms. It's a real surprise to see him taking part in scenes involving a prostitute which are a far cry from the glossy fantasy of PRETTY WOMAN. Ethan Hawke, one of the most haggard-looking actors on the planet, fits his hangdog role like a glove, and only the overrated Don Cheadle proves a weak point. Watch out for Wesley Snipes in a decent cameo, though.