A Straight to Video Film With No Eddie Murphy? Why?
Set on the backdrop of devastated New Orleans after the Katrina, the partner of Detective Andy Devereaux (Val Kilmer) is found dead. Devereauz soon teams up with Stan Green (50 Cent) as new partner. During the investigations, an undercover DEA agent is murdered by two dirty police officers who are corrupt and power hungry. I can't forget the segment where the drug dealers are hanging at the house listening to loud music and having sex with the women.The precinct's psychologist Nina Ferraro (Sharon Stone) has successive interviews with Andy, Stan and the two perpetrators of the shooting. Meanwhile, the FBI also investigate the corruption in the police force leaded by Agent Brown (Michael Biehn).
Kilmer's and 50 Cent's chemistry is crucial for this film to work out. Unfortunately, it's just too disappointing that they don't deliver in that aspect because the script is fairly engaging at times. The viewer has to be witness to this vile & grim view of crime & how it affects the characters who are being watched as they are supposed to just protect & serve our interest but obviously are not. The shaky digital camera works in this instance because nothing about this bleak world we are entering should be represented with the opposite of beauty which is filth & grime. The camera is all over the place, barely ever still. There seems to be only a few long shots that turn out any longer than maybe five or so seconds before switching angles. Even though the plot gets messy & is a bit hard to follow, we must always remember that life in the projects gets quite blurry sometime, not sure if we understand who the heroes or the villains really are, yet this paradox only adds realism to the film. All the players in this film are corrupt in some fashion. We assume they all are worldly guys that are not always saints that do special things, yet this street-wise quality makes the characters look really believable. Val Kilmer is playing cop who never took bribes but constantly brakes laws, makes illegal searches & plants evidences to get drug dealers or simply kills them. But despite of this, he is a man of strong principles. His own principles. 50 Cent is playing his partner who, torn by Kilmer's methods, always covered his back & secretly steals money from busts when he had the opportunity.
I'm going to point my finger at Kilmer's disconnection here since I thought that 50 CENT tried to show emotions half of the time, but Kilmer never really engaged his guilt. Yet still, Kilmer seems to be barely mumbling, making it hard to understand him at times. Maybe that's the way the director wanted him to come over as a cursing bad guy or something, but it didn't hardly work for me mostly. Sharon Stone was not really a good pick for this piece since it was much harder for me to believe in her Cajun accent.
Overall the plot is just a bit too confusing and the story seems to roam. I still do not understand the end in that it didn't seem to be set up well in the earlier stages of the film. There was a scene when one of the guys got shot up against some food trailer and he smeared blood all over the side of the trailer where it said something about roasted rooster balls. I guess that was an ironic end to his vengeful demise? As I stated the script could have been a great deal stronger and the the acting by 50 cent could have be a great deal better, however, I'm sure, for him as a rapper, it's probably hard for him to feel comfortable playing a street cop.
score 5/10
cannonclubonline 28 June 2010
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2270811/35620
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