Add in the reports that Brooklyn’s Finest is one of those films with a bunch of well-known actors came together and took a pay cut because they liked the script so much and wanted to work together, and you’ve got a recipe for a turd sandwich.
Read more AFTER the jump!
Officer Eddie Dugan (Richard Gere) is a cop counting down the days until his he retires so he can get his pension, Detective Clarence “Tango” Butler (Don Cheadle) is an undercover agent struggling to keep
up the ruse, and Detective Slavatore “Sal” Procida (Ethan Hawke) is a policeman who will do anything to provide for his family. When all of these characters get tied up in a drug deal involving a large sum of
money you’ve got the story for every modern cop drama ever...
Say what you will about Fuqua’s films, but the American-born director is good at making sometimes slow developing stories interesting and good-looking with long, crisp, sprawling shots. He frames his characters well and doesn’t make his actors work, which is bad when you have a film with so many well-known actors because it makes it hard for any individual to have a real breakout performance. With Brooklyn’s Finest, though, it works. Having so many stars covers up Wesley Snipes’ utterly horrific performance (seriously, he is just playing a caricature of his own self), and it also allows Cheadle and Hawke to let their subtle brilliance simmer on the story’s backburner.
Brooklyn’s Finest didn’t reinvent the wheel; it’s a cop drama at its heart and no amount of drug slanging or gun wielding will change that, but it does succeed in making its characters something the audience will care about. Because of that, you will care whether or not you saw this movie.
--Mark Collins