Darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour is close at hand

Each Day, A Film: 
February 7th 2012 (Retrospective)

You know, it'd be nice to be less than a month behind on this assignment but, as we all know, life has a way of getting in the way. So let's just flow back into it like nothing happened by talking about Street Kings. 



You see, sometimes it's easier to talk about something by talking about what it's not. And Street Kings isn't Training Day.

Oh, it'd be easy to rip Street Kings apart as a film; Keanu Reeves acts as if he's been tranquilised throughout the entire enterprise even though he's a go-it-alone take-no-shit ask-no-questions hyphenated-descriptor policeman who would, one would think, not want to act as if sedatives were what he used instead of paracetamol.

But let's not treat Street Kings as a film. No, let's treat it as a career intersection, which is far more interesting. Let's break it into ups, downs and laterals.

On the UP side, you have Chris Evans as the Ensemble Rouder-Outer. Post-Sunshine, pre-Push, quite far pre-Captain America, Evans' presence in Street Kings is frankly fucking bizarre, as if the need for a straight man completely counterbalances the rest of the film. And Evans plays it very straight, almost to the point where Ethan Hawke in - yes - Training Day would wonder who put the stick that far up his arse. But, like all straight-cops, Evans has to - more's the pity - learn some lessons from the storyline, the main one of which being not to just do whatever your agent suggests just because Keanu Reeves is in the film.

Now, let's talk about the DOWN, because this film makes no sense whatsoever for Keanu Reeves; put it this way, it makes little sense and it's still the film he did before The Day The Earth Stood Still, which, again, tranquilisers, let's be honest. Reeves kind of wanders through the film, without seeming particularly worried about... Anything, really.

Then there's the laterals, in Hugh Laurie and his magnificent bald patch and Forest Whitaker. Now, Laurie - in trying to break out from House, one surmises, or simply trying to pay the bills that can't be paid by being the executive producer and star of a multi-million dollar syndicated TV series, so perhaps they're really expensive hookers just something he can't talk about.

Now, ask yourself; who did Hugh Laurie sell his soul to to get such a quick rise in his acting career and to trailblaze the way for the current wave of British Actors Playing Quirky Dominant Males In Genre TV? For sure he's smart, talented and intelligent, but just stop and think for a moment; how do you go from Jeeves and Wooster to House in twenty short steps?

So let's maintain that Laurie is a lateral presence, because his presence in the film is a little... odd. To say the least.

And Forest Whitaker... Well, it feels like someone said "How do you fancy basically playing the exact opposite of your character on The Shield? You do? Great! See you at the cast party, dear!"

It's easy to mock the film - and yes, it really is - but it's not that bad. It's a decent slice of action and drama that's much more stylised than Training Day and really doesn't care if you think that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Then again, I paid £3 for it, so maybe I'm biased towards it because of that.