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Street Kings
Fox Searchlight Pictures


7.5

based on 28 reviews
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How did we calculate this?

based on 47 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for strong violence and pervasive language

Starring Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Terry Crews, Chris Evans, Cedric the Entertainer, Common, and The Game

In Street Kings, a police thriller directed by David Ayer, Keanu Reeves plays Tom Ludlow, a veteran LAPD Vice detective. Ludlow sets out on a quest to discover the killers of his former partner, Detective Terrance Washington. Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker plays Captain Wander, Ludlow's supervisor, whose duties include keeping him within the confines of the law and out of the clutches of Internal Affairs Captain Biggs (Hugh Laurie). Ludlow teams up with a young Robbery-Homicide detective (Chris Evans) to track Washington's killers through the diverse communities of Los Angeles. Their determination pays off when the two detectives track down Washington's murderers and confront them in an attempt to bring them to justice. (Fox Searchlight)

GENRE(S):	Crime \| Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	James Ellroy David Ayer
DIRECTED BY:	David Ayer
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 19, 2008 Theatrical: April 11, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	109 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

"Kings" covers familiar territory but does so with ruthless efficiency, intense performances and a densely packed plot designed to highlight the moral issues that most concern Ayer and Ellroy.

Variety Peter Debruge

A brutal look at police corruption that allows director David Ayer and "L.A. Confidential" author James Ellroy to pool their deeply cynical insights.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

After its clichéd first scene - a solo LAPD officer battling a well-armed gang of thugs - Street Kings becomes an enjoyably tough, blood-splattered action drama that revolves around the one good cop at its center.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

There's a lot to appreciate in Street Kings, a tight, propulsive action thriller, but there's one thing to marvel at, and that's James Ellroy's command of story.

Time Richard Corliss

Armed or not, Reeves is the weapon that can go off at any time. That's why Street Kings, though it isn't a great movie, is a pretty damn cool Keanu Reeves movie, one that on the Reevesian action scale measures somewhere between "Whoa" and "Wow."

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

It’s easy to laugh at Street Kings for its bigger than big emotions, its preposterously kinky narrative turns and overwrought jawing and yowling, but there’s no doubt that it also keeps you watching, really watching, all the way to the end.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

A solid contemporary crime drama.

Premiere Jenni Miller

If you’re looking for some big, stupid fun, you could do worse than Street Kings.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Street Kings is nonsense, and yet the crooked, racialized world underneath the soulless mayhem is pretty fascinating.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The picture may feel more than a little familiar, but Ayer knows how to cook up intense setpieces, and Reeves keeps getting better at the weary hero role he continually gravitates toward.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Despite the predictability of the overall story arc, there's suspense and tension to be found between the credit sequences, but the movie is saddled with an ending that is both improbable and borderline insulting.

New York Post Kyle Smith

A wet, red chunk of pulp that knows what it is and doesn't care.

Empire Ian Nathan

Another mean, violent and decently acted slab of Ellroy-flavoured criminality, with an impressively battered Keanu Reeves, but Ayers is no Curtis Hanson.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

For what's essentially a bad movie, Street Kings is fairly tight and energetic.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Every so often, Keanu Reeves' robo-voiced blankness serves him well, but when he has to play a pulpy, tormented demon-saint, scraping up insults and spitting them out like bullets, he's like the host of an infomercial doing an impersonation of a badass.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

See it with people who take it for the trash it is, and you can cheer the baroque killings and laugh fondly with Forest Whitaker as he tries too hard to create a domestic sociopath to match his role as "Idi Amin."

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

After all the actorly fireworks, Street Kings concludes that the LAPD is an institution where even the well-intentioned can't work clean. Okay. What else?

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's hard to recall another time when the cross-purposes of two collaborating filmmakers of a major film has been quite so evident, or when the theme of the movie itself has been so totally schizophrenic -- half populist outrage, half Nazi.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

It preserves the peculiar machismo of Ayer's earlier projects: the alpha male dominates not only because he's the most powerful, but because he's the most jaded.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

I enjoyed parts of Street Kings but I didn’t believe one thing about it, and I couldn’t get past Reeves’ unsuitability to his role. He may someday play a cop on the edge convincingly, but the edge needs to be sharper than this.

Slate Dana Stevens

There's something cynical about Ayer's attempt to preserve Ludlow as a hero after scene upon scene meant to show, with heavy irony, how lawlessly he enforced the law. You can't lionize your "Dirty Harry" vigilante and expose his hypocrisy, too.

Village Voice Tim Grierson

Ayer's grim police thriller mostly plays as one long dick-measuring competition. You sense that an infinitely more complex drama exists within the film's grasp, but no one bothered to stop guzzling the testosterone long enough to find it.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

A bad-cop, worse-cop movie.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The acting? Common and the Game score as baddies, but Hugh Laurie as an acid-tongued internal-affairs cop is disappointingly just House without the limp.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

There are two kinds of police officers in David Ayers and James Ellroy's convoluted, ultraviolent tale of corruption within the LAPD: dirty cops and dirtier ones.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

All the movie's treacheries, deceptions and story twists are marred by our lack of innocence. We see the big picture way before the characters do, and that pushes us right out of the movie and back into our seats -- the last place we want to be.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Wastes a moderately intriguing premise by filling it with laughably clichéd dialogue, one-dimensional characters and implausible turns of events.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Two things come to mind as you watch the first act of Street Kings, the first is how fresh and exciting the movie would’ve been if it was released in 1984, the second is the question, “James Ellroy wrote that?”

The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 47 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Robert gave it a9:
I don't think the critics are right on this one. I thought it was a verry good movie and a damn good Keanu Reeves movie.

Jack B gave it an8:
Easily the best cop movie out in the last few years, gritty yet slick and stylish. Keanu Reeves suits the role well and is the best thing I've seen him in in ages. Could have done with being another 10-15 minutes longer but overall very enjoyable.

Mark K. gave it an8:
Since James Ellroy takes the screenwriting duties it's to no surprise that the script's structure takes a similar setup to L.A Confindental, which means that Street Kings is a very authentic triller with plenty of plot twists to keep you watching throughout putting a satisfied smile on your face at the end. The performances are mostly excellent with sharp dialogue that makes you feel the heat radiating from the conversations and fights. The only problem is Reeves, who brings in the same monotonous voice that we've heard before and thus seems to generate a lot of contrast with the other actors. He also looks as tough as a cardboard box. Still, this film is well worth watching.

George M gave it an8:
It's a decent cop drama with enough twists to keep it interesting. The movie has a cold brutality to it, watching Tom Ludlow (Reeves) being used as a instrument of death for the sake of corruption is interesting to watch.....especially as he slowly finds out the truth. Acting is decent all around and despite some cheesey dialogue here and there everything works out well. The shoot-outs are particular brutal and have a gritty realistic vibe to them, making it all the more intense. This film is definately worth a look.....one of the better " cop / crime dramas" to come around in a while.

Josh B. gave it an8:
Saw this at the cinema. Very good. Better then I expected especially from Keanu. He was very good!

Jay H. gave it a6:
Well made but not very convincing. The film's style is very routine and the movie didn't really have anything new to offer. The acting is good, as well as the editing.

Eric gave it an8:
This movie is really enjoyable. I can see why the critics panned it: Keanu is a wooden actor and the plot has been done before. The "surprises" aren't really surprises. But the tension in this film builds well, the action scenes are solid and the pacing is great. I don't need to get all emotional over the characters in a police action thriller, I just want to enjoy it. For me, that's what this film comes down to, it's enjoyable to watch. Nothing super memorable, but it is fun.

Street Kings Fox Searchlight Pictures

Street Kings
Fox Searchlight Pictures