If you missed the exciting LAPD film End of Watch in the theaters, it’s worth getting it on DVD. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena play a couple of hot dog cruiser cops on L.A.’s mean streets. The film, written by Training Day guy David Ayer, is done “found footage” or documentary-style, which sometimes leads to some distracting moments when you’re thinking — “Wait, who’s holding the camera now?” But aside from that — a minor problem — it’s gritty, well-acted and moving. And it represents the cops fairly and well.
Being me, I especially liked the macho ethos of it all. Lots of good cop partner moments, and high respect for marriage and wives in the manner of real men. There’s a funny and touching wedding scene in which one cop’s wife explains to the newbie how she’s got to give it up without restraint if she wants to keep her husband from straying. Excellent advice. Plus, the bride was played by Anna Kendrick, who was the high point of the overrated George Clooney film Up in the Air. She’s a superb and extremely appealing actress. She ought to get a lead role soon.
Recently, I was blown away by Heather Mac Donald’s City Journal piece “Courts v. Cops.” It tells how the NYCLU and other self-appointed defenders of black rights are interfering with the NYPD and thus insuring more black people get murdered and victimized. Heather — one of the best reporters in the country — points out that the law-abiding black citizen who is grateful for the police “seemingly lies outside the conceptual universe of the advocates and their enablers in elite law firms and the media.” So it was nice to see a film in which the true guardians of the lives of the poor get some props.
Read the article, watch the movie.
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Cross-posted from Klavan on the Culture
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