Three cops facing differing realties of their profession are the focus of Antoine Fuqua’s gritty street film Brooklyn’s Finest. Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, and Don Cheadle play the films main characters. Gere a burn out close to retirement is struggling to find purpose, Hawke a family man looking to rescue his family from obscurity, and Cheadle an undercover cop losing himself in his role tackle identity, politics, and corruption within the system.

There was a time when Martin Scorsese would have made this film. Absolutely devoid of escapism Brooklyn’s Finest compares to Scorsese’s Mean Streets and Taxi Driver. Fuqua offers his audience a glimpse into a world seldom seen, rarely understood, and violently appealing to fans of gritty cop films. Unapologetic are the scenes involving young kids drawn to the streets by the drug trade, the glamorized thug life, the anarchic freedom therein. The film is loaded with vulgar language, nudity, and tons of other offensive topics illuminated for the big screen to capture you so that there is an undeniable belief that what your seeing are the very things that we choose to ignore as long as its not happening on our front door.

As much as people would like to believe that Wesley Snipes is making a huge comeback with this film sadly his character is a side plot and his screen time overpowered by the sheer acting force of Don Cheadle who runs away with every scene he’s in, and why not he’s a great actor, always has been. Even though I’ve never really been a huge fan of Ethan Hawke he really captures his role here; desperate, paranoid, coming apart under stress. Finally Richard Gere whose character is really kind of a forgettable one if not simply a catalyst to provide you with a sense of where cops come out after they’ve been processed through the system. In any case Hawke and Cheadle should win some award for their performances here. All in all if your not someone who can stomach the reality of highly populated city crime, and not just the stuff you read in the paper, but the things that you avoid imaging when you do, then you might want to skip this one. It’s a brilliantly lit celluloid example of the ugly truth.

My only real discrepancy with the film is the score. When not comically highlighting some bar scenes (be sure to pay attention to the music in the first scene with Don Cheadle and his handler) with music made famous by New York the score is constantly going, playing over dialogue, action, everything. It desensitizes you to the importance of the overture as it covers emotional or suspenseful scenes when its playing over every scene. Other then that I say go see this film. You may walk away feeling a bit dirty but if you’re a Scorsese or Luc Besson fan this should hit the spot. Enjoy.