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Sarang
(Honolulu, USA)

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There is only one Street King for me!

I am big sucker for cop thrillers. Even if it is a remake of something I love, I still see it. May be, I have seen to too many of them. Last Friday the movie Street Kings showed up in the local theater and guess what! I was there to watch it. What do I say! The fact is that I am still willing to like the movie but I cannot find a reason why! It is one of those movies that I am left sad because it could have been a whole lot better if there was enough thought put into the story and the screenplay rather than finding out situations to put references in. The first 15 minutes into the movie and I know the denouement and even have an idea how it might come about. From that point on, I lost interest in the movie. I am surprised that it is the work of James Ellroy who has L.A Confidential under his belt.

I wasn’t expecting Keanu Reeves to do anything extraordinary. And he was the only one who did not surprise me. The biggest crime that the movie has dealt with is expecting Keanu to do a Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry. Unfortunately, he doesn’t even get up to a Chuck Norris standard. May be he can definitely do a Steven Seagal. I am not sure! I cringed in pain as he mouthed dialogues that are trademark Clint. Just a sample here:

Chris Evans: So we’re just gonna go in there and kill him?
Keanu: No, I’m gonna ask him some questions… then we’re gonna kill him.

How lame can a dialogue get? I do not mind mouthing the lines while watching a movie if there is some life when it is said on the screen. Suddenly, as I was watching the movie, I realized what might be termed as ‘wooden’ acting. Keanu is literally a block of wood. Definitely looks dumb and clueless throughout the movie which kind of helps his character but, there is no trace of intelligence. By the way, some one on rotten tomatoes wrote that ‘calling Keanu’s acting wooden is an insult to Pinocchio’. Any humour that works for the movie is about the movie. I am not going to waste my time and yours by giving out the spoiler. So, just get the movie and watch it for the first 15 minutes and I am sure you shall know it by then.
The way I see it, a lot of people like to pay homages to a lot of movies. They have every right to. But why should I suffer the consequences? There are certain basic requirements that need to be met if one is toying with the idea of paying an homage. Some of them could be: What situations/dialogues to show? When to refer it in the script? How to refer it?

If you take Quentin Tarantino movies and his references, most of them are part of the story but are NOT the story itself. A simple example would be the opening song in Kill Bill Vol.1 is obviously (I think) his homage to the Japanese master Suzuki Seijun’s classic Branded to Kill. There is a certain love that one can see in his presentation and the scene feels genuine. Let’s take another example, John Woo’s 1989 film The Killer, is heavily influenced by the Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai. In showing homage to the movie, John Woo has not only given the name of the leading character referencing the original, there are a few scenes where the techniques used are similar and the way the character dresses up is also similar. You can see the details in the criterion collection DVD of the movie The Killer. I guess, I digressed more than what I should have.

The script and screenplay are a big let down in the movie. Even a very spirited performance by Forest Whitaker is not enough to save the movie. I am not sure why Forest Whitaker wanted to be a part of this. Such a waste of talent. In the scenes between him and Keanu, you can see that Mr. Whitaker is in a completely different league. To put it in the words of Klara Novak: “Its clear that we are in the same room, but we are not on the same planet!”
In conclusion, all I can say is that for me, there is only one street king: The Original Dirty Harry.

Keanu can do the role in a video game, may be!

PS: Please find the two videos below, one from Kill Bill Vol.1 and the other from Branded to Kill and let me know what you think. Also, I have added another introduction song from Suzuki Seijun’s movie. Don’t you think it is like an SD Burman composition?

Kill Bill Vol1

Branded To Kill

Tokyo Drifter (Bonus Video):

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