Directed by: David Ayer
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña and Anna Kendrick
Running time: 109 min
If you remember the reality show Cops, then this movie is not much different. Breathing fresh air to the found footage genre (fuck you Paranormal Activity! Why? Why not), David Ayer manages to bring a gut wrenching police story into the screen.
This is Ayer's second credit as a writer-director, after Harsh Times (2005). He also wrote Denzel Washington's Oscar-winning Training Day (2001) and two other cop movies, Dark Blue (2002), S.W.A.T. (2003) and The Fast and the Furious (2001). It can be said that Ayer is an expert on cop movies.
There wasn't much good cop movie nowadays and this one could be the best of this year (and a possible Oscar contender for Best Picture). The main characters are two cops, Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena); good friends and partner in the LAPD.
Taylor loves to tape his experience as cop and he would like to make a documentary about it someday. Meanwhile Zavala is a family man. They both being good friends for years and their chemistry is good. We can see how they talk to each other in the patrol car that reflect their closeness. In the first and second act we got to see how they do the job, from solving a domestic crisis to saving kids from fire. They are heroes but not without flaws. They are also human being. Sometimes they acted like tough guys and sometimes they are nice. Behind the badge, they are just like us who have dreams and hopes.
However job is job and they have to do it seriously. The two cops are transferred into a tough neighborhood with a large population of Mexican-American and they stumble upon a large drug stash.
The drug lord in Mexico is not happy about this and ordered that the two cops to be killed. We know hos this ordeal going to end. The film didn't waste the time by doing so many cop movie cliche, although the one-of-the-cop-is-about-to-get-married and the-other-one-is-about-to-have-a-baby has been used so many times to evoke emotion.
All I can say this film really shows the ugly side of Los Angeles that almost as dangerous as the Rio De Janeiro's favelas in Elite Troops.
Being a cop never easy, you put your life in the line of fire and as the title suggest, it is an euphemism used within the law enforcement community for an officer killed in the line of duty. You know how these kind of story usually end but it is the journey that makes it worth to watch and I can say that End of Watch is highly underrated, just like Brooklyn's Finest.
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña and Anna Kendrick
Running time: 109 min
If you remember the reality show Cops, then this movie is not much different. Breathing fresh air to the found footage genre (fuck you Paranormal Activity! Why? Why not), David Ayer manages to bring a gut wrenching police story into the screen.
This is Ayer's second credit as a writer-director, after Harsh Times (2005). He also wrote Denzel Washington's Oscar-winning Training Day (2001) and two other cop movies, Dark Blue (2002), S.W.A.T. (2003) and The Fast and the Furious (2001). It can be said that Ayer is an expert on cop movies.
There wasn't much good cop movie nowadays and this one could be the best of this year (and a possible Oscar contender for Best Picture). The main characters are two cops, Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena); good friends and partner in the LAPD.
Taylor loves to tape his experience as cop and he would like to make a documentary about it someday. Meanwhile Zavala is a family man. They both being good friends for years and their chemistry is good. We can see how they talk to each other in the patrol car that reflect their closeness. In the first and second act we got to see how they do the job, from solving a domestic crisis to saving kids from fire. They are heroes but not without flaws. They are also human being. Sometimes they acted like tough guys and sometimes they are nice. Behind the badge, they are just like us who have dreams and hopes.
However job is job and they have to do it seriously. The two cops are transferred into a tough neighborhood with a large population of Mexican-American and they stumble upon a large drug stash.
The drug lord in Mexico is not happy about this and ordered that the two cops to be killed. We know hos this ordeal going to end. The film didn't waste the time by doing so many cop movie cliche, although the one-of-the-cop-is-about-to-get-married and the-other-one-is-about-to-have-a-baby has been used so many times to evoke emotion.
All I can say this film really shows the ugly side of Los Angeles that almost as dangerous as the Rio De Janeiro's favelas in Elite Troops.
Being a cop never easy, you put your life in the line of fire and as the title suggest, it is an euphemism used within the law enforcement community for an officer killed in the line of duty. You know how these kind of story usually end but it is the journey that makes it worth to watch and I can say that End of Watch is highly underrated, just like Brooklyn's Finest.
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