In the interests of objectivity, I like to approach a new movie as a tabula rasa, knowing as little about it as possible. Sometimes this can be a mistake. Take the example of Street Kings, which like many movies these days has no opening credits. Had I known, as I learned at the end, that this LA cop tale was written by James Ellroy, I would have watched it with a different set of expectations. For instance, I would not have expected the characters to resemble people one might encounter in real life. I would not have expected these officers of the law to be overly troubled by niceties of procedure and restraint. And I certainly would have been prepared for the ridiculously hard-boiled dialogue and operatic plotting that is Ellroy’s stock in trade. After a few decades of writing paperback crime novels, Ellroy hit with readers in the late 1980s and with the wider public in the mid-1990s when his L.A. Confidential was filmed. As a novelist, he progressed by honing his style into something so stripped-down that it reads like telegraphese. But as a storyteller, he needs to get past his obsession with the history of corruption in the LA police department. He’s done the subject to death, and while Street Kings isn’t based on any of Ellroy’s novels, it’s awfully familiar stuff. Keanu Reeves stars as Tom Ludlow, one of Ellroy’s traditional embittered cops. Since the death of his wife, he has worked with a clandestine squad of cops whose motto in dealing with badass scum is “Shoot first, lie later.” When his former partner, who is on the verge of ratting him out to internal affairs, is killed in what appears to be a robbery attempt, Tom starts to untangle the reality of what happened. And why shouldn’t he? We don’t believe for one second that this was merely a robbery, though it was two thirds of the way through the movie before I realized that we were supposed to think just that. Aside from its dim assessment of the audience’s intelligence, Street Kings’ other big problem is the miscasting of Reeves. He’s fine as long as he’s shooting perps or sulking around nighttime LA. But he’s exactly the wrong kind of actor to deliver Ellroy’s dialogue, insisting on taking it seriously. (Though if you think Keanu’s ill-suited, consider the rumor that Tom Cruise will star in an upcoming adaptation of Ellroy’s White Jazz.) More in the spirit of things is Forest Whittaker as Reeve’s mentor. Channeling the spirit of Broderick Crawford, he overacts as only an Oscar winner can, which means get out the way! I won’t say that I wasn’t carried along with all of this, or that I didn’t enjoy watching the likes of Hugh Laurie, Jay Mohr, and Cedric the Entertainer chew the scenery. But then, I didn’t pay $10 to see it.
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