Instead of relying on an orthodox plot-driven piece to illustrate just how challenging it is to police South Central Los Angeles, this crime drama focuses on the work of a couple of young, honest LAPD officers who're routinely thrown into situations that are extremely dangerous, unpredictable and potentially life-threatening. The cops in question are Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Miguel "Mike" Zavala (Michael Pena) who firmly believe that they "get involved in more capers in one deployment period than most cops see in their entire careers".In their work, the threat of violence is ever-present with even the most routine-sounding call-outs (e.g. a noise complaint or a missing person report) providing no room for complacency and events like a car chase almost inevitably ending in a shootout. Another type of danger they encounter is seen when they arrive at the scene of a well advanced house fire with no fire fighters in attendance and kids trapped inside the building. The extreme bravery that they display in going into the house and successfully rescuing the children is then fully recognised when they're both awarded the prestigious "Medal of Valor". Not all their endeavours, however, lead to such positive outcomes and when they unwittingly start to disrupt the activities of a ruthless Mexican drug cartel who are in the process of spreading their influence into South Central; contract killers are quickly hired to eliminate them.Taylor and Zavala's professional partnership and personal friendship were both well established long before they're first seen on-screen and their interactions clearly display how unshakably loyal they are to each other and how readily they would trust each other with their lives. As well as sharing a great deal of banter, they also discuss their personal lives and challenge each other's views on how they conduct their relationships. Taylor who's had a large number of short-term relationships has recently met Janet (Anna Kendrick) and Zavala is happily married to Gabby (Natalie Martinez) who's pregnant with their first child.Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena are both outstanding in their roles which provide a marvellous insight into the type of people who put their lives on the line every time they go out to work. Whilst the dangers they confront provide the movie with most of its tension, there are also many lighter moments which show another side of their personalities and Brian and Janet's moves when they dance along to "Push It" by Salt 'N' Pepa are a lot of fun to watch. Taylor delivers the movie's opening narration which includes the line " behind my badge is a heart like yours" and Gyllenhaal and Pena's performances leave no doubt that this is indeed true of the courageous tough guys that they play."End of Watch" is gritty, action-packed and presented in documentary-style with the events on-screen being seen from multiple viewpoints by courtesy of a whole variety of different cameras (e.g. a police dash cam, a camcorder carried by Taylor and cameras attached to the cops' uniforms ). This treatment is highly effective in enhancing the immediacy, edginess and excitement of what's seen during the episodic accounts of the cops' activities and the movie's excellent soundtrack also complements its style perfectly with Public Enemy's "Harder Than You Think" providing a real high point. Most people will be pleasantly surprised to find how engaged they become with Taylor and Zavala as characters and how much more substance, poignancy and humanity is seen here, compared to most cop movies.

Firstly want to apologize before hand as this so called "review" is a bit all over the place. The point should be clear though. hahaThis movie I thought was literally one of the best performances I ever saw. Amazing movie, just the realism the good times the laughter. Why can't we remain on a high note throughout the whole movie?Jake & Michael are epicly paired partner's as for Public-Service Roles in the Police force. A Successor-like-perspective film would be wild stuff. Yet with a General-Bad-Boys like feel would do them very well. To give them the quality of character they both deserve. Not to mention a well thought-out sequel-proof successor film. That's what's key, is to line up this film with many sequel's already lined up. This way you know you can hook along fan's with a continuous highly-interesting story about friends-Police-partner's. Like 48 hours sort-of, but with the epic action and confident/ cocky like behaviors.Sequel? Yes Please. It is well deserved. Heck if not a Sequel, I think the Director should line up both Actor's among others for a similar film. Minus the ending which was horrendous... Like seriously dude? Jake's partner was a super cool dude. That should have never happened to him...Maybe if this successor-like film by the same Director had the "same" relative feel and groove as "Bad Boys". That would be sick dudes! Where Jake has the Ferrari or some souped up muscle car and his partner Michael have relative-general-familiarity of "Bad Boys" character model yet just crazy funny and hilarious throughout. Can't forget the girls either, Fun laughter, Epic Good Times, and lots of beautiful women ;). With epic action scene's but they both make it out totally cool and golden. So then can continue on a sequel of said "General-Successor-Like-Film".The Director of "End Of Watch" did a great job I must say. Other than the ending.. Seriously.. like what?!? Sort-of totally ruined the whole movie for me. Too harsh of a Mega-Downer at the end.Anyway, just saying. Let's see some new and intriguing film from said director of "End Of Watch". Would be HIGHLY-Intriguing.

I like Jake Gyllenhaal. Like many other great actors, I know that whenever I see his name I am in for a good time......then again, like many other actors, or many of us for that matter, one sometimes have a bad day at the "office".I'd say this was a pretty terrible day for a couple of reasons, namely: - He was acting on this. - He was producing this.Plus the fact that, at this point, he really didn't need to do either of the points above.But let's talk about the movie.It is meant to be a documentary or sorts, but in fact is a movie. Actually, it is neither. Too movie-like to be a documentary, and too slow and predictable to be a movie.When I watch a movie about policemen, I expect action. When I watch a movie about policemen in LA, I expect tons of action. When I watch a movie that was made after the year 2000, I expect better than the same old from the 80s.Suffice to say that none of my expectations were met.And this is not to say that the movie is bad. It entertains if you are on a low Wednesday. But it is just boring and predictable. I knew after the first 20 minutes what was going to happen, and while the film did have a couple of twists, it was not good enough to save it.So 5 points out of generosity. Watch it if you have nothing better to do.

So you look at the score given on IMDb, you see Jake Gyllenhaal, it says action drama and you think that OK, this will be good! Time to see a good movie and it has all the premises to not let you down. But this is bad. I mean not just bad.. its so bad I had to create an account here on IMDb just to warn people so they could spend their time on something good, that doesn't make them wanna break their TV just to get a sense of undoing this garbage they just witnessed.About the movie itself then... The movie will, as soon as it start, be a cliché of everything. I will not spoil anything but believe me this movie will be bad..Who wrote the dialog for this movie. Maybe if this would be a parody where it should depict these cops this would be a perfect dialog.. but it is not.. its tagged as action and drama for crying out loud. Maybe they should just one extra time include a line where someone could say "(insert cliché phrase) ladies!" to our main characters just to be sure someone didn't miss it during the movie..Why not just include a useless love story and some talk about their families so you get to know these average Joe cops, just so you can recognize yourself with these cops.. Great that half of the movie is wasted on this. Because every time it feels like the movie is about to finally getting somewhere you get these love stories ruin the movie. I would rather have commercial brakes than this...So you sit and wait for this waste of time going down before you eyes and it seems like it is finally going to happen, it's going to end. And damn is it a bad ending. The movie is really giving you the middle finger here, and to make things worse, when it finally ends they cut in this worthless scene between the two partners and as soon as the first one opens his mouth you know exactly how the story ends.The only crime committed here is that this train wreck was ever produced. The day before watching this mess I got a knee to my forehead doing Muay Thai and had to get some stitches, but if I could turn back time and choosing to redo just one of these two things I would go back and ask to get my skull cracked with the knee this time just to be sure to never have to end up seeing this "movie".Oh and did I forget to tell you about the camera work. What do you know! It sucks as well.I thought writing this review would let the anger out but it didn't. The worst part is that I suggested this movie.. I now have a ban on choosing movies because no one will ever forget this horror I had to make them sit through. Thanks David Ayer!