Street Kings (2008)

David Ayer's range in quality of output is impressive; amongst his back catalogue he can boast the brilliant (End of Watch [2012]) alongside the dreadful (Suicide Squad [2016]). This cop thriller sits somewhere in the middle, starring Keanu Reeves as a cop who becomes disillusioned after the death of his wife and is then accused of killing a fellow officer. Following this he starts to go against his fellow cops, not knowing who he can trust. We've seen it hundreds of times before and while Ayer brings some panache to proceedings, the film doesn't do anything new or unexpected which is especially disappointing considering this is the man who wrote the script for Training Day (2001). In fact, the screenplay for Street Kings is coined by novelist James Ellroy, the man who penned L.A Confidential, and at times Street Kings plays like L.A Confidential lite.

There are perfectly decent performances from Forest Whitaker and Naomie Harris, and Reeves does a fine job in the main role; he's an actor that's frequently underrated.

But for all the big names both in front of and behind the camera, Street Kings suffers from not being much more than average, which when you think of the talent on display, isn't really good enough. 5.7/10