BROOKLYN’S FINEST follows the lives of three conflicted cops during the course of one week.  Sal (Ethan Hawke) is a narcotics cop who is trying to provide for his family even it means killing bad guys to get the money for a down payment for a bigger house.   Tango (Don Chedle) is an undercover cop who is too close to Casanova (Wesley Snipes, the man the feds want him to stitch up for a drug bust.   Then you have Eddie (Richard Gere), a patrol cop about to retire in one week.  Eddie is trying to hold it together.   He has thoughts of killing himself, sleeps with a beautiful druggie hooker, and feels you shouldn’t be a hero.

BROOKLYN’S FINEST is a powerful film about the struggles cops go through.   If they just focused the film on Eddie, this film would have been a masterpiece.  Richard Gere pulls off the darkness of Eddie and his story is the most captivating.   I love this film better than TRAINING DAY.   The directing of Antoine Fuqua has improved since his first film.   He thrusts the viewer into a dark world where conflicted cops are just trying to survive and sometimes try to make things better even if it is for one person.   Tango knows Casanova wants out while the feds just think of Caz as a big chance to make him a three time loser (Caz has been in prison twice).  Wesley Snipes is another great acting asset in this movie behind Richard Gere who owns this movie with his dark take on Eddie.

BROOKLYN’S FINEST is a dark movie whether it is the way the film is lighted at nighttime or the dark journeys the characters take.   Brooklyn is another character in the film as you see the place through the character’s eyes.   They are a product of what the place and other people have done to them and failed to do for them.

SPECIAL FETAURES:

Audio commentary with director Antoine Fuqua

Five deleted scenes and two alternate endings that go beyond where the movie ended provide to be very interesting even though they don’t fit into the final film.

Four behind-the-scenes featurettes-

CHAOS & CONFLICT: THE LFIE OF A NEW YORK COP- a featurette focusing on the cop characters in the film to display the things cops can go through

BOYZ N THE REAL HOOD- the director used Brooklyn locations and local extras to add realism to the film

AN EYE FOR DETAIL: DIRECTOR FEATURETTE- the director and cast talk about the directing style of Antoine Fuqua

FROM THE MTA TO WGA: WRITER FEATURETTE-  how an MTA employee became a screenwriter, got his script filmed, and quit the MTA to write fulltime

Rounding out the extras are the original theatrical trailer and trailers for other releases: SPARTACUS Season One, THE CRAZIES, PANDORUM, LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, and ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP.

FINAL ANALYSIS:   BROOKLYN’S FINEST is Antoine Fuqua’s finest dark cop movie.   It would have been a masterpiece if it just focused on Richard Gere’s character.

This DVD review is ©7-8-2010 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com