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Sal (Hawke) is a struggling family man who has 4 kids and his wife is expecting twins, he knows that the house they live in is not big enough to support a family of 6, so he is looking into purchasing a brand new property. Throughout the film he is constantly on the phone with what is assumed to be a real estate agent saying that he will soon have the money. Sal believes he can confiscate money at a bust. His friend Ronny Rosario (Brian F. O’Byrne) warns him against doing so. Tango (Cheadle) is an undercover cop who has gotten himself involved personally with those he is supposed to be taking down. One of those people is like a brother to him, Tango wrestles with his emotions about bringing down local drug dealer Casanova Philips (Wesley Snipes). Eddie (Gere) has Seven days left on the job, and he just wants them to go buy as fast as they can. Eddie has depression issues and as his last seven days unfold we see that Eddie is willing to let things go unseen because he just does not want to have the hassle of being involved.
Antoine Fuqua creates 4 lead characters. Four people we can all relate too. Sal just has it rough, he needs the cash. He is not a bad man he just takes for granted what he already has. At times Sal just needs to take a step back and realize his family may not be in the perfect situation but putting himself at risk may not solve any of their issues. Tango is probably the one that we can identify with the most, he has loyalties in the police force, laws he swore to uphold, but Cass saved his life, and we all know that when someone saves your life you owe them one. Tango is trying to find a way of getting Detective first Grade without having to throw Cass off the bridge so to speak. Cass has a tough life to live, we all know that morally drug dealing is a terrible profession, but one can understand that growing up on the streets of Brooklyn would not have been easy at times. Eddie is an older cop who has been around the block perhaps many more times then he would have liked, and the images and the cases he has worked are going to stay with him for the rest of his life. Eddie just knows the ins and outs of the job to well to know that they will not be able to save everyone, and being a hero can at times get you killed. You could easily feel the life in these characters as they marched across the screen. Antoine Fuqua wonderfully paints their emotional lives all over a canvas.
This film was exactly the type of film that really shows the ins and outs of humanity, these were Brooklyn cops struggling to keep up with everyday life and what did he see in this film? The lies the corruption that they are involved day in and day out. This film is dark, it is real. The lives, the situations were ones you could easily read in your local news paper or see on the evening news. It seemed more like a reality TV series more than a film and that is because Fuqua masterfully told three separate stories with Sal, Tango and Eddie barely intersecting in each other’s life.
There wasn’t any really scenery that stood out except an aerial view of the Brooklyn Bridge. There were a few flashy bar scenes but you could tell through Cheadle’s brilliant display of facial expressions that for Tango it was all a hoax. Cheadle was the best of the four main stars, and his chemistry with Wesley Snipes was perfectly in synch that you felt these two were like brothers. These two could easily own a much better script as this script was the first screenplay written by Michael C. Martin. This film will not be a stand out come award season next year, or it will not hit a greatest films of all time list, but it is something down the road one could easily have in their collection of gritty cop dramas. Cheadle really executes the edgy feeling of a man in too deep. Snipes stands a long side him wonderfully portraying a man whose life looks glamorous on the surface but he himself is constantly hiding money and living on the edge for fear someone could turn on him.
Really why this film was so perfect is because there was not the high speed car chases, the insane explosions, the dangling from a helicopter action scenes. They kept the three plots separate from one another and Michael C. Martin kept the plotlines simple enough that you will not be wondering after viewing who was who.
Ultimately the three storylines are just building tension through-out the film so that within the final 25 minutes they explode and their lives will forever be altered.
9/10
