The Keanu Reeves Project - Street Kings

 STREET KINGS (2008) - Detective Tom Ludlow

I've once again found myself watching a Keanu Reeves starring movie that I've simply never heard of.  The movie was released in April of 2008 and it's possible I was too distracted with moving into a new apartment in Austin, TX around that time to even notice this movie had come out because on it's face, it appears to have been something I would have been interested in - crooked cop Keanu hunts down the killers of his former partner only to uncover even more crookedness.  Great, I'm on board.

Cut to 8/25/20, the date in which I actually watched this movie and I can safely say I did not make a mistake by missing out on this one initially.

As always, full and total spoilers ahead.

One of the more fun aspects of this project, particularly when I run into a less than stellar movie, is that it allows me to do some cursory research before sitting down and writing these posts.  About 30 minutes into "Street Kings," I started to think to myself, "Wow, this movie is like 'Training Day," but really stupid."

It was around that time that I hit the pause button to look up who made this thing.

Well it turns out that this was written by by David Ayer, who also happened to write a variety of other police dramas including: "SWAT," "Dark Blue," "End of Watch" and....what's that...yes, "Training Day."

KING KONG AIN'T GOT SHIT ON ME!

Well at least the dude ripped off himself, but in between writing "Training Day," a movie that I've seen a handful of times and writing "Street Kings," I think David Ayers might have been given a lobotomy.  

For some reason, I took a shitload of notes on this movie, but rather than bore you with a full and complete synopsis because there's no way you've seen this movie, I'll try to summarize as best as possible.

Keanu Reeves plays Detective Tom Ludlow, who works undercover for the vice squad in the LAPD.  Early in the movie we learn that he's got a drinking problem (all of his drinking is almost exclusively airplane size bottles of vodka) but this never really comes into play for any reason.  Oh, he's also just a tad bit racist.  Or, at least he is for the first 15 minutes of the movie, but then that aspect of his personality also goes away, never to affect any other part of this movie aside from an opening sequence where he murders a bunch of Korean dudes in order to save two kidnapped girls. 

That's right, Detective Keanu does not play by the rules! Of course, we learn pretty early on that seemingly, nobody in the LAPD is particularly clean, including everyone that works in Keanu's unit which is led by Forrest Whitaker as Captain Wander.  Actually, the entire corrupt LAPD might be the most believable part of this movie, and without getting into current events of police brutality (or, you know, events that have been happening at a pretty steady clip by law enforcement for the last 200 years), let's just say that Keanu and all of his colleagues seem to be just fine with doing a little (or a lot) of dirt on the job.

Detective Keanu, in his second recent movie as a police officer, learns early on from Captain Forrest that his former partner, Terrence Washington, played here by Terry Crews, is snitching on a lot of cops to Internal Affairs.  Keanu, being the lovable drunk he is (no seriously, despite ALL OF HIS DRINKING in this movie, he never appears drunk or under the influence of anything at all), follows Washington to a bodega which is immediately "robbed" and Washington is straight up riddled with dozens of bullets from automatic weapons by the two assailants.  In the ensuing melee, Keanu fires his own weapon in defense, but accidentally hits Washington in the back.

I use quotation marks on the robbery because it should be VERY evident to Detective Keanu that this was clearly a hit designed to take out Washington but for some reason he doesn't figure this out until the third act of this movie.  The two suspects come in blasting, steal nothing, and blatantly target Terry Crews.  You'd have to be an idiot to think anything else, but again, maybe Keanu was drunk.

Keanu's crew show up to the scene of the crime and Wander wants to know what Keanu was even doing following Washington in the first place despite being ordered to stay away from him.  In the most incredulous part of an incredulous movie, Keanu tells Wander that he was just going to beat up Terry Crews for snitching, not murder him.

In case you've forgotten, this is what Terry Crews looks like without a shirt on:

I'm giving Keanu 10,000:1 odds in this fight

Anyway, this inciting incident really leads to everything else that happens in the movie, which I'll really try to summarize in brief.

Keanu ends up teaming up with Detective "Disco" Diskant, played by a young Chris Evans, to solve the case as to who killed Washington despite the fact that Captain Wander and Sergeant Jay Mohr are seemingly doing everything they can to get Keanu to let sleeping dogs lie.  It is pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that Wander, Mohr and Keanu's entire unit are up to no good beyond planting drugs and guns on Korean gangs who kidnap young women.  See, EVERYONE in the LAPD in this movie are up to no good, just to varying degrees.  Again, this might be the most accurate part of the movie.

Detective Keanu and Detective Disco go from lead to lead from a variety of "bad guys," many of which are played by recognizable faces, like Cedric the Entertainer, The Game and Noel Gugliemi.  I bet you're asking, "who the fuck is Noel Gugliemi?" But trust me, you know him, because for all of the 2000's whenever a movie needed a generic Latino gangster, this dude's agent got a call.  This guy has 210 acting credits and I'm willing to bet at least 150 of them are "East LA Gangster."  No really, here are some of his acting credits: "The X Files" - Gangbanger #1, "The Animal" - Gangster, "National Security" - Latino Convict, "Bruce Almighty" - Hood, and "Training Day," where he actually has a name, but is, wait for it...a gang member.

Noel Gugliemi as Generic Latino Ganger #1

All the while, Keanu is being followed around by the head of Internal Affairs, Captain Biggs, played by Hugh Laurie.

Not playing House

Keanu and Disco eventually find their way to meeting "Fremont" (another actor who is almost exclusively in David Ayers films) and "Coates," (played by Common in his first encounter with Keanu Reeves, stay tuned), who are the two responsible for gunning down Terry Crews.  After a short encounter at their hideout, Keanu kills both of them after they open fire, killing Disco.  Keanu pulls off a pretty slick move here, crushing Common with a fridge before shooting him in the face.  This won't be the last time that Keanu Reeves kills Common on screen.

I'll be seeing you soon, John

He flees the scene and heads to his girlfriend's house where he learns that "Fremont" and "Coates" were ALSO undercover cops who ALSO are incredibly dirty as they've been stealing heroin from evidence rooms and selling it.  Terry Crews had figured this out and was snitching on them to Internal Affairs, so of course he had to die.  Two of the other members of Keanu's unit find him at the house, tie him up and bring him to a house with the intention of executing him.  

Bake'em away, toys!

Of course, Keanu is able to kill both of them and escape, only after they explain the entire plan like a couple of low-rent Bond villains.  Keanu then goes to confront Captain Forrest Whitaker who is actually the big boss behind everything (duh).  Forrest Whitaker explains that he has dirt on literally everyone important in LA and plans to use this to become the chief of police but only if Keanu lets him get away with it.

So it comes as no surprise when Keanu, who apparently is sick of dealing with dirty cops, shoots Wander dead in his own kitchen.  Hugh Laurie shows up and is basically like, "hey good job" and the movie ends.

In general, this is a pretty silly and obvious movie but overall it's generally watchable even if it's not good.  My biggest gripes are the threads that are opened but lead to nowhere like Keanu's racism and drinking.  By the time he realizes that everyone around him is even dirtier than he is, it's hard to actually care.

There's some pretty over-the-top violence, particularly when Terry Crews is murdered but a handful of other scenes as well and the movie drags a bit while Keanu and Chris Evans go from street criminal to street criminal trying to solve a case nobody wants them to solve because it would incriminate just about the entire police department.  

A few side notes on this one:

*I've never actually seen the Ayers written film, "Dark  Blue," but it was released while I was in college and I feel like I saw commercials for it CONSTANTLY, leading me to often quote a hilarious Kurt Russell line from the trailer - "The only reason this city is here is because they built it WITH BULLETS!"  

*Hey, how about another thread that leads nowhere?  Late in the first act we learn that Keanu's wife died from a blood clot while she was cheating on him.  Does this matter at all to anything that happens in this movie?  Nope!  This all should have been left on the cutting room floor.

*Keanu kills a bunch of people in this movie and aside from the opening sequence where he murders some Korean gangsters, I believe they are ALL dirty cops.  I don't know, I feel like even if they are all dirty there's gotta be some kind of repercussions for this.  Maybe that's why they made a sequel to this, which went straight to video.  Of course, that movie literally has none of the same cast members so I'm guessing that doesn't tie anything together whatsoever. 

*There's a chase sequence where they bust through a house that happens to have "Flavor of Love" on the television.  I went through a long period in the 2000's when I was watching any and every reality dating show on VH1 so this part of the movie really spoke to me particularly because it also happened to one one of, if not, the most famous moments from the show.

I sincerely hope New York is living her best life right now

*At one point Detective Keanu shows up to Wander's house and Forrest Whitaker is just chilling in his silk pajamas.  I don't know, I thought it was funny.

Silky

*There's a pretty funny montage early on when Keanu gets reassigned after the Terry Crews shooting where he's responsible for intake of civilian complaints, almost all of which are about shitty police conduct and all of which seemed plausible.  I could have watched 45 more minutes of this, or I suppose I could just turn on the news.

"So I'd appreciate it if you stopped murdering black people."

Box Office Information: $26 Million ($33 Million inflation adjusted) domestic/$39 Million international for $65 Million worldwide on a $20 Million budget.  I guess that's pretty decent for a movie I've never heard of.

Rotten Tomatoes: 36% Critics/58% Audience.  These numbers make sense to me.

IMDB: 6.8

My Movie Rating: I'm a little conflicted on this as this is not a good movie, but it's totally watchable if you're drunk on the couch some night and I've been watching so many Keanu movies for this project that I'm starting to think of these in terms of how much or how little I'd want to watch this compared to others.  Given the fact that I gave "The Lake House" a 4.5 in my last post and the fact that I'd MUCH rather sit through "Street Kings" again than that, I'm going to just go ahead with a 5.

Keanu Rating: He is a little stiff in this one and I wish he even attempted to pretend like his character is affected at all by alcohol, considering he's constantly consuming it so he gets a 4.

Up Next: It's the remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still."  I've also never seen this.