In the first three minutes of this "Crash" -meets-Corrupt-Cops actioner, Vincent D'Onofrio ("Law and Order") verbalizes the central theme: If good people do bad things for a good reason, and bad people do good things for a bad reason, which is "Gooder," and which is "Badder?" Then we are launched into non-stop violence, with a bloody, highly profane view of what Hollywood thinks it takes to be a policeman in today's Brooklyn.
Director Antoine Fuqua ("King Arthur") uses an impressive roster of first-stringers:
- Richard Gere ("Hachiko") is a low-achieving cop whose 20-year career is dwindling down to an uncelebrated retirement.
- Don Cheadle ("Hotel for Dogs") is an undercover cop confronted with a demand to betray a friend.
- Ethan Hawke ("New York, I Love You") is a narcotics cop with a desperate need to move his growing family to a new home that isn't infested with mold.
- Wesley Snipes ("Blade") is a felon who is uneasy about his unexpectedly sudden release from the penitentiary.
- Will Patton ("Wendy and Lucy") is the go-between for the undercover cop and a long-promised promotion.
- Lili Taylor ("The Promotion") plays the fecund wife of a devoutly Catholic Brooklyn cop.
- Ellen Barkin ("What Do Women Want?") is an ambitious official. (I still think Barkin is vastly overrated...)
This film is overloaded with crucifixes, pictures of Jesus on walls and other evidence of Catholicism. Is this Fuqua's way of thumbing his nose at religion or are the tawdry hangouts of drug dealers, white slavers and prostitutes always decorated this way? I guess I don't really need to know....
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