Street Kings Blu-ray delivers stunning video and audio in this fan-pleasing Blu-ray release
Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) is a veteran LAPD Vice Detective who sets out on a quest to
discover the killers of his former partner, Detective Terrance Washington (Terry Crews). Forest
Whitaker plays Captain Wander, Ludlow's supervisor, whose duties include keeping him within
the confines of the law and out of the clutches of Internal Affairs Captain Biggs (Hugh Laurie).
Ludlow teams up with a young Robbery Homicide Detective (Chris Evans) to track Washington's
killers through the diverse communities of Los Angeles. Their determination pays off when the
two Detectives track down Washington's murderers and confront them in an attempt to bring
them to justice.
Do the department a favor: wash your mouth out with buckshot.
Street Kings is another in an ever-growing line of movies revolving around corrupt police
officers. Many have come before it, garnering anything from tepid reviews to nearly universal
acclaim. Training Day, Cop
Land, The Departed, and
L.A. Confidential are
examples of the more recent, and better, offerings from this ever-popular sub-genre that is
becoming a staple at the box-office. Street
Kings isn't a bad movie. It's technically sound, well-acted, well-directed, tense, and
engaging, but it's also stale. That's really no fault of its own, though. It is what it is and it does
what it needs to do well enough. The problem is that we've seen this movie before, sometimes
done better, sometimes done worse, but at the end of the day it's a movie that belongs in the
upper half of the "best-of" list in its genre, but fails to meet or surpass the above-referenced films
in overall quality, which is no knock because those are some first-class films with several Oscar
nominations and wins amongst them.
Unfortunately, bullet-time is not available to save lives in this Keanu Reeves film.
Detective Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves, The Matrix) is a
tough, street smart cop who refuses to play by the rules. After a set-up weapons deal with some
Korean gang members goes bad, Ludlow tracks them to their house, kills them, plants evidence,
stages parts of the shooting, and rescues two young kidnapped girls in the process.
Soon thereafter, he finds himself the subject of an investigation by Internal Affairs. His Captain,
Jack Wander (Forrest Whitaker, The Air I Breathe),
continually bails him out of trouble, but when Tom's former partner Washington (Terry
Crews, Norbit) begins
snitching on Tom's methods, a confrontation between old friends is inevitable. When Washington
is brutally murdered with Tom at the scene, the department covers up for him, including
removing evidence that a shot from Tom's gun struck Washington, leading Tom down a path of
further corruption, danger, and hate from both the criminal world and those in the force who
would see him brought to justice.
Street Kings is a brutal, unforgiving look at police corruption that maintains a tight
narrative and a quick pace, helped along by solid dialogue, a decent story, fine acting and
direction, and several engaging action sequences. Street Kings is not a movie focused on
violence. Rather, violence is the result of the actions partaken by the characters, and it's
relentless. The world can be a brutal place, and rarely has a film taken such an unforgiving look
at just how ugly a place it can be. There is a clear dividing line between action movie (something
like xXx: State of the
Union or Maximum Risk) and
gut-churning, bullet-riddled crime drama, and Street Kings easily falls in with the latter.
There is no incorruptible, likable action hero in Street Kings. Each of the
characters, like the world they live in, is extremely flawed, and the movie
takes that tone and runs with it, using language and disturbing violence to drive the point home.
Movies like this do not feature "entertaining" action sequences. Instead they are poignant and
disturbing, both visually and emotionally. The scene where a character is killed in a convenience
store is completely unrelenting and hard to watch, and that proclamation comes from someone
who enjoys movies like Black Hawk Down and
Rambo. While those
films, and others like them, frame their violence in a context of depicting it as an unfortunate
necessity for survival, freedom, or destruction of evil, the violence in Street Kings is all
the more disturbing because it seems so unnecessary, brought about by corruption, hate, and
distrust, much of it amongst the kind of people so many entrust their safety to on a daily basis.
Indeed, the point is driven home by a series of visuals depicting severe wounds to the neck, face,
and head rather than generic torso wounds, so as to truly let the audience see the end result of
the
violence.
Like Cop Land, L.A. Confidential, The Departed, and Training
Day,
there is no shortage of good talent in front of the camera in Street Kings. Like the movie
itself, though, the talent is a notch below these others. Whereas those other films featured
the likes
of Jack Nicholson, Russell Crowe, Matt Damon, Guy Pearce, Robert DeNiro, James Cromwell, David
Strathairn, Sylvester Stallone, Matt Damon, Ethan Hawke, Leonardo DiCaprio, Harvey Keitel,
Danny
DeVito, Kim Bassinger, Ray Liotta, Scott Glenn, Kevin Spacey, and Denzel Washington, Street
Kings features Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Amaury Nolasco, Hugh Laurie, Chris
Evans, Cederic the Entertainer, and Jay Mohr. That's not a shabby list, but comparing it to the
sheer star power and Oscar nominations and wins lining the shelves of the former, they pale in
comparison. Once again, though, the cast assembled for Street Kings is more than
adequate. In fact, I enjoyed Reeves' performance quite a bit, and despite the stereotype, he's a
decent dramatic actor given the right material, and this is it. Forrest Whitaker, as always, offers
a powerful performance, and he remains one of my favorite actors. Street Kings does
feature direction from David Ayer, who wrote Training Day, one of my favorite movies
that also features Denzel Washington's finest performance to date. His direction is fine. It's not
flashy, fancy, or fantastic. "Workman-like" best describes it, but he retains a grittiness and sharp
edge to the film, stylistically and thematically, without simply resorting to an abundance of film
grain and drab, lifeless locations to get the point across. He's no Scorsese, Mangold, or Fuqua
(the latter two highly underrated directors in their own right), at least not yet, but Street
Kings is an impressive effort for a second feature film.
Street Kings is yet another solid effort from Fox. Framed in its original aspect ratio of
2.40:1 and presented in 1080p high definition, the title is not one that will sparkle and pop off
your
screen thanks to a myriad of colors and HD-friendly source material, but the transfer does retain
a
very pleasing cinematic look and feel that solidifies it as an upper-echelon Blu-ray title. There are
times when
there is a soft edge to the movie, but such segments are dwarfed by a generally sharp, clear, and
well-defined transfer that revels in an excellent level of fine detail in
everything from faces to the barrel shroud of a carbine seen later in the movie. Color
reproduction is fine (the scene where Ludlow and Disco first speak with Scribble truly shines), and
black levels are perfect. Exterior scenes are bright and crisp with natural color reproduction and
solid depth. My favorite scene came in chapter ten during a funeral at twilight. That time of day
makes for a great setting (ask Michael Bay) and it offered a breathtaking image that is so natural
and cinematic that it blew me away and had me yearning to be watching this one on a larger
screen. A subtle layer of grain is to be found atop Street Kings. It's generally noticeable
in most scenes, but as noted earlier in this review, the filmmakers did not use it in abundance to
drive home the grittiness of the film, but what is here is intact on this disc. Overall, Street
Kings is fine high definition material that looks great on a large screen, and while I did not
see the film theatrically, its style lends itself well to large screens and this quality transfer should
hold up well on even the largest of home theater systems.
As always, Fox brings Street Kings to Blu-ray with a DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, and it's
another winner. Music, by composer Graeme Revell, plays an important part in the movie; the
film's score is bass-heavy with
deep, penetrating lows that get inside your skin and add to the tension, grittiness, and despair of
the movie. These lows are impeccably reproduced on this lossless soundtrack and home theater
systems will be put through their paces from beginning to end. A solid surround presence is also
apparent almost from the get-go. Not only does the track use atmospherics, the lifeblood of the
surround speakers, to great effect, but loud, discreet effects are in abundance, too. Whether we
hear a helicopter hovering behind the on-screen action, or the the sounds of the environment,
something is generally
happening in the back. Both indoor and outdoor ambience is great. Outside, the sounds of traffic
permeate the listening area, while interior shots, for example in the police station, feature
bustling office noises, like the sound of telephones ringing or computer keyboards at work. The
convenience store shooting felt and sounded so real it literally scared me (partially because of the
brutality of the scene and not just its audio presentation, to be fair), which is rare anymore. Like
3:10 to Yuma,
Street Kings features realistic-sounding gunfire, be it the heavy shotgun and automatic
fire heard throughout, or the cracks of single shots one after the other from pistols near the end
of the film. The sonic realism of such scenes is a subtle yet important factor in driving home the
gritty realism in the movie, and the sound designers did a superb job. On the downside, I noted
an odd hissing sound on occasion over the soundtrack, and there were a few instances of
booming, rough dialogue that seems to reverberate unnaturally. All in all, though, this
soundtrack is a winner, and despite two minor quibbles, it's definitely the highlight of the disc.
Street Kings comes to Blu-ray as a feature-packed special edition with pertinent
information and little filler. Headlining the
features
is a commentary track with director David Ayer. Ayer provides a technical commentary track that
delves into many of the nuances of the filmmaking process and also some of the basic
technical details of filmmaking. He also discusses the themes of the story, motivations of the
characters, and the look and feel of the film. Technologies employed in the making of the movie
is
also heavily discussed. His comments are straightforward and intelligent, and his track will likely
be
a hit amongst more technically-inclined viewers. Under Surveillance: Inside the World of
'Street
Kings' is a picture-in-picture feature capable of playing during the movie on BonusView
(profile
1.1) enabled players. Fox has wisely provided the material separate as well, accessible from the
main menu. Playing them individually, the segments are presented in 480p standard definition
and
run for 36:48. There is some great material in here, ranging from a chat about the film's score
and hip-hop music played throughout to a brief discussion on Chris Evans' firearms training.
Playing the feature over the movie also provides viewers with a pop-up trivia track in between
video segments.
Next are fifteen deleted scenes (480p, 12:20) with optional director commentary by David Ayer.
Ten alternate takes (480p, 29:05) are also included. Street Rules: Rolling With David Ayer
and Jaime FitzSimons (480p, 17:28) is next. The two travel through the Rampart division of
Los
Angeles and discuss its history and place in the film. It's a fairly interesting if slightly voyeuristic
(thanks to its style of filming handheld from the back seat of the van) piece. L.A Bête Noir:
Writing 'Street Kings' (480p, 4:49) is next. This brief feature intertwines behind-the-scenes
footage with a discussion of why movies like Street Kings are popular and delves into the
origins of the story and its evolution into what we see in the final product. Street Cred
(480p, 3:51) looks at the kinds of people and places that inhabit David Ayers' stories and films,
and the authenticity of the actors who portray the various roles in the film. HBO First Look --
City of Fallen Angels: Making 'Street Kings' (480p, 12:01) is your basic making-of fluff piece
that isn't really worth watching after the fairly informative pieces that come before it on this set.
Four vignettes that showcase the making of particular scenes, casting, themes in the film, and
the reality depicted in the film, presented in 480p, are next. Included are Crash Course
(1:28), Heirs to the Throne (2:15), Inside Vice Special Unit (1:42), and
Training Days (2:26). Behind the Scenes is also a series of four brief featuettes
that examine an aspect of the filmmaking process. Presented again in 480p, the options include
In Training (1:05), Car Rig (1:13), Squibs (0:48), and On Set
(0:52). Two 1080p trailers for Street Kings (1:20 and 1:45), and previews for
Behind Enemy Lines 3, Stargate:
Continuum, and What Happens In
Vegas are next. Rounding out disc one is Inside Look. Presented in 1080p,
viewers see a clip from the film Mirrors starring Kiefer Sutherland and directed by
Alexandre Aja. Disc two of this set
contains a digital copy of
the film for playback on personal computers and
select
portable video devices.
Street Kings is a decent "bad cop" movie that is more of a rehash of old ideas rather than
offering anything new or groundbreaking. It does follow formula well, though, and as such is not a
complete loss. The performances are fine, as is the direction; just don't expect anything more than
a slightly above-average cop drama and you'll enjoy Street Kings. The movie is definitely
for mature audiences who can stomach some hard-to-watch brutality. As always, Fox's Blu-ray
release is up to par. It features a high quality image that is very theatrical in look and feel, a
robust, realistic, and engaging soundtrack, and plenty of extra materials for the fans. Street
Kings does not have infinite replay value, however, and the movie is probably best served as a
rental for most and a purchase only for the most avid cop-film aficionados, and, of course, Blu-ray
collectors.
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has announced the action thriller Street Kings 2: Motor City for Blu-ray release on April 19, in a BD/DVD combo pack. This direct-to-video sequel to Street Kings stars Ray Liotta and Shawn Hatosy as two cops who join forces to ...
Fox Home Entertainment has announced that they are bringing the Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker film 'Street Kings' to Blu-ray on August 19th, day-and-date with the DVD release. The movie will be presented on a BD-50 utilizing BD-Java. Video will be presented ...
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