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Street Kings (2008)
I suppose it was one of those times in my life when I was completely lost and had nothing to do. I was kind of at a weird life crossroads and a lot of stuff was out of my control. And instead of contemplating on the inner workings of the universe, I watched Street Kings starring Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker and Hugh Laurie. But the choice of Street Kings was, in itself, bizarre. Even in my life haze, I considered watching The Deer Hunter, Good Will Hunting or even a fiftieth viewing of Dazed and Confused: for all practical purposes, excellent movies with meaning. But instead I watched Street Kings.
And this confusion made me wonder why and how such a film was made. Filmed in the ‘LA Gang’ universe where every intersection is a war zone and bullets enter the human body and spontaneously combust causing the victim to explode, Street Kings is about stoned faced Keanu Reeves trying to figure out who killed his partner. Sounds noble, right? Well, Keanu’s partner was a horrible human being as is Keanu. The unit Keanu works in is also full of horrible human beings. The IA unit that investigates horrible Keanu and his horrible unit is also horrible. In fact the entire city is horrible. And by the end of Street Kings you have also deduced that the entire cosmos is horrible. Nothing is good.
Anyways, horrible Keanu conducts his investigation that leads him to horrible revelations and even more horrible people. A lot of people die and explode when hit with bullets but justice is served: granted it is served with a massive gun blast of nihilism and a tiny tea spoon of the horrible. Street Kings represents mankind and mankind is horrible. It never ends. This movie was one cussing baby away from pure, unadulterated pessimism. I assume half the viewers of Street Kings went home and offed themselves because their worldview was crushed and their expectations of a happy future were pissed on by the horrible screenwriters and the horrible film makers.
Although Street Kings has made me hate all life on the planet, I actually enjoyed much of the film. Hugh Laurie, for one, decides to take his character of House, a horrible human being, and morph it over to this movie. Except now Hugh Laurie is even more horrible. I expect Hugh Laurie to kick baby kittens in this movie, he is that horrible.
Fresh off an Oscar win and brimming with confidence, Forest Whitaker decides to take his massive frame and 600 pounds and literally consume the scenery. This will go down as his Nicolas Cage performance. Shit, it’s his Marlon Brando performance! Did I mention his character is also a horrible human being.
There are a lot of inspired rapper roles in this movie: you know, roles where they are supposed to cuss a lot, say the ‘n’ word and promote violence. Nothing like their music. I saw names such as Common and The Game. Let me know when Obsequious, O.K., and XBox Live show up because I’m sure they were there.
The most bizarre casting decision was to cast the aforementioned horrible Keanu police unit with completely non terrifying actors. If John Corbett, best known for playing Aidan on Sex and the City, and Jay Mohr, known for, well, let me get back to you, terrify you then Street Kings will be the thing of nightmares for you. But if you are a normal human being, they will simply make you laugh. They are horrible though, just in case you were wondering.
So while I go tie the noose around my neck and picture the planet burned to a crisp because of the worldview Street Kings placed on me, I will say that the only non-horrible thing about the film was the film itself. Go watch it. You might enjoy and then lose yourself in depression, like I did.
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