L'élite de Brooklyn

La réalisation manque de punch, sauf au dénouement, musclé et tendu, quoique peu crédible. Des interprètes doués tentent de donner de la chair à des personnages peu développés.

Fuqua does well capturing the rhythms of the housing projects where much of the action takes place, but seems incapable of recognizing the cliches and leaden dialogue that sink his film at every turn.

This parade of cliché is well made - Fuqua showed in Training Day that he has an eye for the tensions of the streets - but it's also ugly: violent, coarse, bitter, and demeaning in its treatment of women, which could be a reflection of the world in which it's set, but even at that, it pushes the limits.

Film policier à l'ancienne explorant les méandres du pouvoir bleu, Brooklyn's Finest tire son épingle du jeu malgré un scénario qui n'évite pas les clichés. Du solide, pas fondamentalement original, mais interprété et réalisé avec conviction.

La première heure est prometteuse - intelligente présentation des personnages, dialogues bien rendus par des acteurs à leur meilleur, mise en scène méticuleuse, musique discrète qui ne surligne jamais les moments forts -, mais tout s'effondre dès les accès de violence virile et d'érotisme nunuche; Brooklyn's Finest devient alors un énième film macho, avec ce que cela implique de fusillades, de gros mots, d'épouses éplorées, de mafieux cool et de repos du guerrier.

It's good to see Snipes back on the big screen, and the scenes he shares with Cheadle are a highlight. But there's so much unremitting pain, such a constant string of calamities in the lives of all the players, that the dreariness overshadows the story. There's a good movie to be made about the wrenching pressures endured and daily risks faced by law enforcement types. But the popular formula needs an inventive angle.

Particular scenes are not always entirely credible, but the sheer charismatic force of much of the acting keeps you in the movie. As the machinery of the plot accelerates, however, Mr. Martin's script becomes dangerously overheated. The climax is both chaotically messy and fussily neat, as the bullets fly a little too frequently and hit their targets with clean, hollow thumps of significance.