Brooklyn’s Finest

Brooklyn’s Finest is a hardcore drama detailing the lives of three unconnected policemen of differing positions that eventually end up in the same place. The lives of these men lead them to a place of desperation, depression and anger where death is a welcome escape to the lives they live. Director Antoine Fuqua, the man behind the scenes in  Training Day brings us back to this familiar ground of dirty police officers and enterprising ghetto gangsters. The effort is led by three brilliant actors who all played their roles beautifully as Tango (Don Cheadle), Eddie (Richard Gere) and Sal (Ethan Hawke). The pacing was reminiscent of CRASH, a spiraling gloomy descent of intense anticipation as each one of these men reached boiling point as life got harder and harder. Although the finale bordered a bit on ridiculous, I understood the symbolism of it all and enjoyed the movie immensely.

The Players (Three Cops at Boiling Point)

Tango is an undercover cop who has been undercover way too long. So long has he been under that the lines begin to blur as his ambition of reaching detective seems more like a carrot being dangled in front of his face by the upper brass. He is angry, hardened, has done prison time and has made his bones in the streets along with the thugs. To anyone outside of his superiors Tango was the real deal, a rags to riches hustler and boss whose love extended only to his buddy Chaz (Wesley Snipes) the main boss of his drug empire, an ex-con whom he helped get free, and a man who had saved his life in prison. When his wife leaves him and his promotion is threatened Tango begins to fall more into the darkness and the fake street name that he had made for himself begins to become his reality.

Eddie is a burnt out 22 yr veteran of the NYPD who has one week left till retirement. The first time we meet Eddie he has a gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger resulting in a click due to no bullets being in the chamber. Eddie is completely burnt out, he has no life, his woman is a prostitute to whom he pays top dollar for a few hours pleasure. He is aloof, dead to caring about anything except getting out and a miserable wreck to watch onscreen. Of the three characters you can feel the depression of this character, he is done, finished and he made me feel tired just watching him go though the motions to get to that final day. It would have been an easy trip to that pension had the chief not paired poor Eddie up with a rookie who brings him back to reality, an unwelcome reality that leads him to commiting one good act.

Sal is a father of four beautiful kids, his house is a shithole and his wife is pregnant with kids. He is a great father and a struggling Catholic, his poverty straining the strings of his faith. His boys want a room to themselves so that they can get a turtle, his eldest daughter wears her skirts too short. Sal knows that drug money doesn’t end up helping the poor victims of the street but rather ends up padding the pockets of the political fat cats. He needs money because his house has mold that is affecting the health of his wife and unborn kids, but he has a realtor friend and she’s holding a house for him. The house is about to go back on the market if he can’t get her the money within the week. He’s short on money, his salary can’t help him out outside of feeding his family, he prays but God isn’t helping. The daily raids he lead brings him within the reach of thousands of dollars stuffed into stoves, mattresses and toilets. He’s getting desperate and time is running out, he has to make a choice.

The lives of these men are a depressing rollercoaster to watch and of the three I would say that Sal was the hardest to watch. You wanted to cheer for the guy, he was a good father, hated racism, wanted to be a man of faith and was actually quite good at his job. Regardless of all these qualities the one thing he lacked was control, his wife was a baby machine, his check was small and he had no other income stream to help him get better accommodations. His life was a screwed up mess and he wasn’t dealing with it well. All three of these men were extreme caricatures of things we all go through in life, we work at places where we can’t get promoted. We never seem to have enough money and with the aspect of losing our homes looming over our heads we get desperate. Brooklyn’s Finest was a joyride through emotional hell on many levels, I would urge you to go out and see it.

Written by Greg Dragon – who has written 365 reviews on Spicy Movie Dogs.

Cinephile and opinion writer, Greg Dragon has been a fan of movies since the 80's when Kung Fu theater was all the rage and Roger Moore was James Bond. As an opinion writer that has reviewed Box Office releases on a number of prominent websites, Greg is the founder and lead critic of Spicy Movie Dogs.