The Agency's Posts

HAVING IT ALL: 10 WAYS HOLLYWOOD'S POWER WOMEN MAKE IT ALL WORK: Super-busy A-list producers, studio executives, agents and managers swear by these strategies for....
Read More>

The Book Thief Entertains and Educates: In recent years, Hollywood, for better or worse, has played a significant role in educating the....
Read More>

The Big Picture Strikes Back: By A. O. SCOTT Like a character who develops a discreet but noticeable cough at the end of....
Read More>

It's All About the Squinch!: Ever wondered if you're missing out on some of the basic tricks of modeling, and if you could be....
Read More>

Last Chance to sign up for this Workshop!: LAST CHANCE to sign up!"Work as a Model" Commercial Print Workshop on November 23rd....
Read More>

Review: 'Ender's Game' captures the now in its futuristic tale: The 1985 youth novel 'Ender's Game' uses a tale of a misfit hero to relay enduring truths about....
Read More>

Nicole Kidman: From 'intoxicating' fame to low-key Nashville life: Nicole Kidman had her share of an "intoxicating" level of fame when she was married....
Read More>

Lisa Kudrow calls nose job at 16 'life-altering,' talks 'Friends': While other kids were out getting their driver licenses when they were 16, Lisa Kudrow did....
Read More>

As Elton John in 'Rocketman,' Tom Hardy's big switch: After playing beefy tough guys in films such as"The Dark Knight Rises"and"Bronson
Read More>

Paul McCartney sounds revitalized in 'New': 71-year-old Paul McCartney comes off effortlessly contemporary as well as hummably Beatle-esque....
Read More>

Robert Redford shows why he's a star in 'All Is Lost': "All Is Lost" begins in darkness. There is a voice, though. Weary, almost apologetic,....
Read More>
Cops Who Tote Guns and Video Cameras
Posted on: 09/21/12
Share/Save/Bookmark
 

‘End of Watch,’ With Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña



An ode to beat cops and the expansive literature on them, David Ayer’s “End of Watch” is a muscular, maddening exploitation movie embellished with art-house style and anchored by solid performances. As visually kinetic as it is politically dubious, it sings the song of two Los Angeles police officers, Brian (a good Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike (an equally fine Michael Peña), brothers in blue who roll in a black and white. Like the cops in Joseph Wambaugh’s 1970 novel “The New Centurions” they are soldiers amid, in Mr. Wambaugh’s roll call, “whores, flimflammers, paddy hustlers, hugger muggers, ex-cons of all descriptions, and anybody else with a kink of some kind or other.”
 

The villains in “End of Watch” are less flamboyantly diverse (and quaint sounding) than those rattling around “The New Centurions.” Here the baddies are primarily Latino gangbangers (and their cartel masters), men and women with neck tattoos, dead eyes and names as blunt as their violence: Demon, Wicked, Big Evil.

Their ethnicity partly reflects changes to the neighborhood that the cops patrol, identified in the movie as South Central, but since 2003 officially known as South Los Angeles. The new name was an attempt to distance the area from the civil disobedience that has convulsed the city and the more localized violence that, depending on your take, has been immortalized or exploited in films like“Training Day,” which Mr. Ayer wrote.

As with “Training Day” this movie pivots on a fundamentally decent cop, Brian, who endures a crucible of violence and experiences something of a moral education. A former Marine (Mr. Ayer was in the Navy), Brian is ambitious and taking prelaw classes for which he’s making an epically long video. This plot device allows Mr. Ayer to tell the story through Brian’s hand-held camera, the mini-cameras he pins to his and Mike’s uniforms, the surveillance camera in their squad car and images shot by other characters, including the gangbangers. Mr. Ayer was clearly after a hyper-verisimilitude of the sort deployed in some contemporary horror flicks, an unmediated realism that’s meant to suggest the truth of the image but, as it does here, only confirms its entertaining artifice.

Mr. Ayer has said he wanted “End of Watch” to look like something on YouTube; happily, it just looks and plays like a mainstream multi-act movie with a lot of super-shaky, run-and-gun imagery. After a while Mr. Ayer’s visual gimmickry calms down or simply ceases to distract as the episodic story takes Brian and Mike from the city’s mean streets to their homes and women, Janet (Anna Kendrick, sexily cast against type), and Gabby (Natalie Martinez). The women are unsurprisingly secondary figures, although each puts in quality domestic time with the guys.

There are also a pair of tough-chick cops (America Ferrera and Cody Horn), and their rabidly violent gangbanging counterpart (Yahira Garcia). Mostly, though, this is about men loving each other and fighting the evil that other men do.

Some of that wickedness is grimly familiar from the news and other films, and almost all of it is committed by the black and mainly brown people on the other side of the blue line. Mr. Peña’s sympathetic performance and likable character help keep the movie from coming across as a kind of freakout over the specter of a Latino Nation.

At the same time Mr. Ayer exhibits a curious nostalgia for the hood’s good old bad and blacker days, notably in the use of a Public Enemy song and a scene in which a middle-aged African-American tough (a vivid Cle Sloan) favorably compares the cops to original gangsters. It’s a moment that registers as a plea for authenticity, although less on behalf of the characters than the director.
 

End of Watch

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Written and directed by David Ayer; director of photography, Roman Vasyanov; edited by Dody Dorn; music by David S. Sardy; production design by Devorah Herbert; costumes by Mary Claire Hannan; produced by John Lesher, Nigel Sinclair and Matt Jackson; released by Open Road Films. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes.

WITH: Jake Gyllenhaal (Officer Brian Taylor), Michael Peña (Officer Mike Zavala), America Ferrera (Officer Orozco), Anna Kendrick (Janet), Natalie Martinez (Mrs. Zavala), Frank Grillo (Sarge), Cody Horn (Officer Davis), Cle Sloan (Mr. Tre) and Yahira Garcia (La La).

 
COMMENTS
Be the first to post a comment!


Post A Comment:




  • It's 2020! Start booking roles in commercials, fashion, films, theater and more with The Agency Online!

  • NEW WORKSHOP with Barbara Barna & Sean De Simone!

    Hi Everyone and Happy Summer! Sean at Sean De Simone casting and Barbara Barna are teaming up for a super informative and fun Hosting for Home Shopping workshop. A great opportunity for established or experienced TV Hosts and Experts interested in learning how to get noticed and how to get in....
  • MASTERCLASS W. Robin Carus & David John Madore

    A Special Offer for the Agency Community, from one of our favorite NYC Casting Directors! EMAIL FacetheMusicWithUs@gmail.com Or Eventbrite To Sign Up! Class Size is Limited.
  • Don't Fall Into The Comparison Trap

    Hi Everyone! As the second installment in an ongoing series of features by the Agency's amazing community, here's some sage advice from our own Regina Rockensies; a humble (& awesome)veteran we've had the pleasure of working with for a long time. Have an excellent week! : ) - The Agency....
  • One Model's Agreement

    Hi Everyone! As the first piece in an ongoing series of original articles by the Agency community, here's a short reflection on some of the values of professional acting & modeling that we can all keep in mind for our next casting. Good luck on your castings &shoots this week! : ) -....




 
home       castings&news       privacy policy       terms and conditions      contact us      browser tips
Official PayPal Seal