Street Kings

By Robbie Collin

WATCH out, society! Keanu Reeves is a cop who doesn't play by the rules. Unless you're talking about the rules of being a cop who doesn't play by the rules, that is.

In which case? He's got about as many surprises in store as the speaking clock.

"At the third stroke, Keanu will neck neat vodka, drive fast around Los Angeles, gun down a bad guy and swear a lot. Beep. Beep. Mother-beeeeeeeep.

And that's Street Kings. LA Confidential meets Grand Theft Auto, with exactly the amount of originality and subtlety you'd imagine. Absolute diddly-squat.

There are corrupt cops, drug-dealing gangstas, sinister police conspiracies. And a wide variety of positive female role models, ranging all the way from sexy nurses to sexy hookers and a sexy bereaved wife.

Yep, all bases are covered. (Although on a couple of the hookers' outfits, it's a close thing.)

Keanu plays Tom Ludlow, an LAPD cop getting over the death of his wife with the help of alcoholism and extreme violence.

Pity the poor crooks he tracks down—rather than even attempting to make arrests, he boots down the door, massacres them with a semi-auto then plants firearms on the still-warm corpses.

After doing just that to a sex-trafficking gang, Ludlow and boss Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker) enjoy a bit of rare good publicity.

Slick

Which lasts all of 24 hours, until one of Ludlow's hated ex-colleagues—who had a fair bit of dirt on him—is mysteriously gunned down in a convenience store. While Ludlow's in there. With a gun.

In rolls internal affairs captain James Biggs (Hugh Laurie, playing House with a badge) who makes it his business to investigate.

Wary of a stitch-up, Ludlow makes it his business too. And, with the help of detective Paul Diskant (Chris Evans—the one from Fantastic Four), he goes on the trail of the real killers. With its grim cops and gangs setting and near-total lack of humour, Street Kings could have been a stony-faced disaster.

Instead, it's the best action film of the year so far, thanks to the sterling work of director David "Harsh Times" Ayer and writer James "LA Confidential" Ellroy.

Ellroy's tale of police corruption might not feel that fresh but it is slick, smart and thumpingly well-scripted—blurring the lines between cop and crook brilliantly.

Combined with Ayer's knife-sharp direction, which cranks the tension when necessary but keeps the action flowing fast and furious, it's a belter of a team-up. And it comes tantalisingly close to matching Harsh Times and LA Con.

Solid work from the cast too, from Forest Whitaker and Hugh Laurie to comedian Cedric the Entertainer as go-between Scribble, and cameos from rappers Common and The Game.

And there's dear old Keanu. Normally known for having the acting range of a 30cm pencil-case ruler, he turns in a perfectly good performance here. Which, looking over his CV of Bill & Ted's "dude" adventures and The Matrix, is probably a career best by default.

In a year that's looking light on adrenaline, Street Kings comes as a welcome blast of heart-thumping, bullet-pumping cop thriller with a killer twist.

Now, play by the rules of being a good cinemagoer, and watch it.