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A veteran cop with just seven days until retirement.
Rookies whose eyes shine as brightly as their badges.
Detectives who grouse that, given their meager pay, they're worth more dead than alive.
An officer who is deep undercover and frantic to return to his old life or what's left of it.
We've seen it all before, but not with Richard Gere, Don Cheadle and Ethan Hawke, the latter playing an older, desperate variation of his tenderfoot in director Antoine Fuqua's "Training Day."
Pittsburgh native Fuqua is back with "Brooklyn's Finest," and he brings gritty realism to this interlocking story of cops whose lives and fates intersect at the close of one chaotic week in New York and one drug-riddled housing project.
- Starring: Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, Richard Gere.
- Rating: R for bloody violence throughout, strong sexuality, nudity, drug content and pervasive language.
- Web site: www.brooklynsfinestthemovie.com/
Mr. Gere is Eddie Dugan, a 22-year veteran who wants to invisibly drift through his final week and retire to a fishing cabin in Connecticut. Mr. Hawke is narcotics officer Sal Procida, a father of five with twins on the way who tells a priest during confession, "I don't want God's forgiveness. I want his [expletive] help."
Rounding out the trio is Clarence "Tango" Butler (Mr. Cheadle), an undercover cop who served time in prison to get closer to the streets. That's where he reunites with Caz (Wesley Snipes), a drug dealer back in the neighborhood after eight years behind bars.
These Brooklyn streets are mean, especially the ones around a housing project that factors into an operatic finale. Religious themes and symbols, from a rosary here to an elaborate angel tattoo there and the undeniable payment for sins, burst into full throttle.
"Brooklyn's Finest" was written by a first-time screenwriter and former New York City transit worker Michael C. Martin. His depiction of women is extreme -- a hooker, a pregnant mother with a brood of children and a brassy special agent played by Ellen Barkin -- and his characters familiar.
Mr. Fuqua, however, is a master when it comes to casting. He directed Denzel Washington to his leading actor Oscar for "Training Day" and here gives Mr. Snipes a choice role and choreographs his police players with energy, tension and bursts of unexpected violence.
The story acknowledges the temptation of drug money, the exhaustion of the long-distance race -- "You got 20 years of days" a rookie is reminded -- and how a misunderstanding can flare into a flash point or lead to a deadly error by a good, decent guy.
Making the wrong choices for the right reasons still means making the wrong choices, and the movie has enough talking and debate points for all five boroughs.
"Brooklyn's Finest," a little long at just more than two hours, is filled with coincidences, fateful collisions and some twists that are foreshadowed. It's not part of the gold shield list of best cop movies, but it's not among the worst, either.
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