All's status quo until Ludlow's former partner, a rising Serpico, is gunned down in front of him by two thugs. Fueled by a belated sense of responsibility for the error of his ways, Ludlow goes through the motions. He smashes phonebooks in faces, throws cronies onto barbed wire, and even rips a guy's cheek with a pair of handcuffs. I'm sure that some detective work takes place, but the film's plausibility is almost nil, so let's just ignore the rest of the story for the time being.
Reeves, at his best when his mouth is closed, does a lot of great clenched-jaw work here. Whitaker too shows his stuff, spraying an impressive amount of saliva every which way. Numerous familiars show up: Hugh Laurie (TV's House), Chris Evans (Fantastic Four's Human Torch), Cedric the Entertainer (a bunch of bad comedies), The Game (OK, so most of us haven't heard of him), John Corbett (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), and Common (Smokin' Aces). Common's bit part steals the show, with his all-too-brief performance as a cop-gone-dope-dealer.
Against expectations, Street Kings avoids being entirely horrible and ratchets up the adrenaline from time to time. Plenty of action compensates for a story so twisty and turny that it stopped being plausible halfway through. Performances are amusing all around, and the blood flows freely. Much of it does, admittedly, teeter into cliche or genre archetypes, but hey - who cares? B-
Spring Break
