Street Kings
Directed by David Ayer
- action
- crime
- drama
- thriller
The story
Tom Ludlow is a disillusioned L.A. Police Officer, rarely playing by the rules and haunted by the death of his wife. When evidence implicates him in the execution of a fellow officer, he is forced to go up against the cop culture he's been a part of his entire career, ultimately leading him to question the loyalties of everyone around him.
What it’s like
Gritty, rain-slicked nighttime Los Angeles, shot with handheld intimacy and a murky, desaturated palette of sodium-orange streetlight, cold blue interiors and the flat grey of dawn over freeways. Car interiors and dim bars feel cramped and sweaty, and the camera stays close on faces that are tired, guarded and sometimes bloodied. The score is a restless pulse of synth and low percussion, punctuated by sudden, deafening gunfire that makes the silence afterward feel like a held breath. Pacing is driven and jagged, with long stretches of tense conversation broken by abrupt, brief but brutal violence, including shootouts and a few murders shown without much lingering. The emotional register is bleak, cynical and morally knotted, following a burnt-out cop who drinks heavily and drifts through a corrupt system until he has to question everyone he trusts. It suits a late night alone, or anyone who wants a hard-edged crime thriller about compromised loyalty and dirty police work, though it is not for viewers who want gentleness, and its violence and profanity land hard.
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