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• Brooklyn's Finest tries to be daring, but falls flat

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Despite the obvious irony in its title, Brooklyn’s Finest is a rather engaging hyper-realistic look at three parallel tales of corrupt policemen by director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day). Using first time screenwriter Michael C. Martin’s story, the film focuses in the style of police novelist Joseph Wambaugh famed tales of the 1970s. Brooklyn's Finest follows the lives of New York cops: Eddie, an alcoholic veteran who is a week from retirement (Richard Gere), Sal, a racist violent cop whose large family is making him desperate for more money (Ethan Hawke) and Tango, an undercover cop who’ recently divorced (Don Cheadle).

Set in the city’s highest crime area, the film catalogs the daily activities of drug pushers, hookers, thieves and less than honest police. Fuqua’s dark naturalistic visual style and tough realistic dialogue adds to the natural grittiness of the film; as he depicts a plethora of police discontent and intense bloody violence inflicted by a variety of the borough’s citizens. Eddie drinks too much, is suicidal and regrets having to break in rookie cops in his last days on the force. Sal kills victims in cold blood, seeks help from a local priest while trying his best to be a father to five and help his ailing pregnant wife. Tango works undercover to monitor trafficking and drug lord Caz (Wesley Snipes) a longtime boyhood pal. Somehow this all seems so familiar in the most formulaic and melodramatic way. There is nothing original or significantly different from the conventional qualities of cop crime films from the '70s and ‘80s.

Fuqua gets fine, but oddly unsympathetic, performances from his three leads. Cheadle however, is most compelling dealing with his personal demons and professional commitments. Fuqua also sprinkles the story with rich supporting character performances by Ellen Barkin, a tough, foul mouthed special agent, Will Patton, as special operations lieutenant, Vince D’Onofrio and Snipes, who returns to the screen in fine presence after years of personal problems off screen.

While Fuqua mostly separates the three tales creating a sufficient amount of suspense, the narratives converge in a very bloody series of events in one locale. The film’s fine cast keeps the story undeniably compelling, but one just wonders how a different focus might have made this story seem more relevant to the 21st Century.