In Brooklyn, New York, the veteran policeman Eddie (Richard Gere) is a bitter and disillusioned lonely man that will retire in seven days. The catholic dirty detective Sal (Ethan Hawke) is a family man in despair that needs to raise money to buy a better house for his family. The undercover detective Tango (Don Cheadle) is affected by the long period he has been working infiltrated in gangs and has requested to be transferred to an office. Their lives and fates are entwined when Eddie retires and sees a missing girl that has been kidnapped by sex traffickers and he has to take a decision; Sal has to make the down payment of the dreamed house and he does nit have enough money; and Tango is assigned to frame the drug lord Caz (Wesley Snipes) that saved his life years ago and has become his friend.

"Brooklyn's Finest" is a gloomy and bitter police story with a cast that is a constellation of stars, some of them with minor parts. I watched this film with great expectations, but unfortunately the screenplay is not original, too long and sometimes confused. The three stories are very well known by viewers of this genre and the narrative is cold, without emotions. The director Antoine Fuqua could (or should) have made a better feature with the available budget and cast. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Atraídos Pelo Crime" ("Attracted by the Crime")

Back in the day any film that mentioned Brooklyn would inevitably have to mention the Dodgers. But this is Brooklyn where the Dodgers have been gone now for several generations. A sadder Brooklyn to be sure and a much meaner one, especially for the police who have to patrol the seamier parts of it.

Brooklyn's Finest takes its technique and its story from the Academy Award winning Crash and the Seventies classic Report To The Commissioner. It's a three track parallel story about three Brooklyn cops, Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, and Ethan Hawke.

Gere is the veteran beat cop who gets a pair of rookies to train in what is his last week on the job before retiring. He's unattached and looking to a comfortable, but barren retirement bereft of friends and families. That extra disposable income is getting disposed of in the hands of a lot of hookers.

Don Cheadle is an undercover cop working the narcotics and he wants out really bad, but his superior Will Patton just keeps getting him to go for one more assignment. Cheadle is well aware of the temptations that can befall the guy undercover, that he could start to identify with the people he's infiltrating. On this last 'just one more' Patton brings in FBI agent Ellen Barkin who has but this one scene, but it's a beauty to get Cheadle to take down one of his running buddies in the undercover world, Wesley Snipes.

Finally we have Ethan Hawke who is a member of the Narcotics Squad, the guys who come in like SWAT and raid drug operations and see a lot of money get vouchered into evidence. For a guy who is having some financial problems the temptation is overwhelming, especially when in a key scene involving a poker game among the team members we learn just exactly where that vouchered money eventually goes.

Gere, Hawke, and Cheadle all wind up in the same project apartment building in East New York/Brownsville, all on different missions in the climax. What the result turns out to be is a shocking commentary on the absurdity of certain laws and the enforcement practices therein.

Brooklyn's Finest is another product from the creative hands of director Antoine Fuqua who piloted Denzel Washington to an Academy Award in Training Day a few years back. Brooklyn's Finest isn't quite as good as Training Day and none of the players just dominate this film the way Denzel Washington did in Training Day. Still it's a good no frills look at law enforcement in the borough of homes and churches which is what Brooklyn used to call itself.

I recognized quite a bit of the location shooting both in Brooklyn and in Manhattan. I'm sure the folks who live in East New York never thought they'd ever see a movie company filming in their mean streets.

Another 'corrupt cop' thriller, of which there are so many these days. This one's directed by Antoine Fuqua, who made TRAINING DAY with Denzel Washington, so he has some experience in the genre.

BROOKLYN'S FINEST, while telling a complex and inventive story, never grabbed me the way it should have done. It may be because the production is just too miserable for its own good. The whole film takes place in darkness and even in the daylight scenes, the faces of the actors are shadowed.

The relentlessly downbeat script and frequent moments of harsh violence add to the overall experience, which is depressing. The tropes and themes that all been explored many times previously and, while the film certainly keeps you watching, I didn't come away from it feeling awed or wowed in the same way I did watching STREET KINGS.

Still, the acting is strong, especially from Richard Gere who plays a VERY different character from those in his rom-coms. It's a real surprise to see him taking part in scenes involving a prostitute which are a far cry from the glossy fantasy of PRETTY WOMAN. Ethan Hawke, one of the most haggard-looking actors on the planet, fits his hangdog role like a glove, and only the overrated Don Cheadle proves a weak point. Watch out for Wesley Snipes in a decent cameo, though.