Brooklyn's Finest

Theatrical Release Date: 2010 03 05 (USA)

UPC: 013132140490

Studio: Starz/Anchor Bay

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Graphic Violence, Nudity, Profanity, Sexual Situations, Drug Content]

Summary: Training Day director Antoine Fuqua takes viewers on a dark ride through the streets of Brooklyn, following three New York Police officers as they wrestle with temptation, loyalty, and duty while attempting to uphold the law and deal with the pressures of the job. Eddie Dugan (Richard Gere) is days away from retirement, but he's been burnt-out for years. Unable to remember why he signed up for the job in the first place, all Eddie can think about is retreating to his fishing cabin in Connecticut, and forgetting the horrors that he's seen during his decades on the job. At the same time, undercover narcotics cop Clarence "Tango" Butler (Don Cheadle) is right in the thick of it. As hard as he tries to quit, however, his superiors always find a way of keeping him on the job. Much like Dugan, he's lost sight of his priorities, and these days Tango's loyalties seem to lie more with notorious inner-city drug dealer Caz (Wesley Snipes) than with the boys in blue. And Tango isn't the only cop who's being drawn to the dark side of the law; narcotics officer Sal Procida's (Ethan Hawke) wife is currently pregnant with twins, and he's barely making enough to keep his family afloat. When Sal learns that his wife is at risk of losing their unborn children, desperation drives him to consider unethical means of ensuring financial stability. In seven days, the lives of all three officers will converge at one crime scene as the NYPD attempts to clean up the BK projects, the epicenter of lawlessness in the highest-crime precinct. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Category: Crime

Awards: Film Presented – Sundance Film Festival Film Presented – Venice International Film Festival

Features: Audio commentary with director Antoine Fuqua
Chaos & Conflict: The life of a New York cop
Boyz N the Real Hood
An Eye for Detail: Director featurette
From the MTA to the WGA: Writer featurette
Deleted scenes
Three Cops and a dealer: Character profile

Brooklyn's Finest

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 07/06/2010

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 2.40:1

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, PCM null

Runtime: 132 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Subtitles: Spanish

Alaina O'Connor

In Brooklyn's Finest, director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) paints a brutal picture of the volatile world of one of New York City's most dangerous precincts, where law meets crime and the line between right and wrong is blurred. The film follows the lives of three conflicted New York City police officers as they navigate the seedy underbelly of a rough area of Brooklyn plagued by drugs, prostitution, and corruption. Burned-out veteran Eddie Dugan (Richard Gere), days from his retirement, just wants to take his pension and move to a fishing cabin in Connecticut. Narcotics officer Sal Procida (Ethan Hawke) finds that there's no line he won't cross to provide his family with a better life and save his long-suffering pregnant wife and kids from squaller. Clarence "Tango" Butler (Don Cheadle) has been undercover so long he fears he may never crawl out of the dark hole he's burrowed himself into. With pressure bearing down on them, each man faces daily tests of judgment, loyalty, and morality in one of the city's most dangerous professions. Brooklyn's Finest is reminiscent of similar cop dramas such as Serpico, New Jack City, and even HBO's The Wire (though not as brilliant), and for a while the film starts off as a promising crime drama about three police officers driven to extremes in order to do their job. Fuqua brings the same kind of soulful intensity and gritty realism that characterized his previous inner-city tale Training Day, but this time abandons the simplicity for a more complex and claustrophobic narrative filled with tortured souls. Where Brooklyn's Finest falters is in the script, written by first-time screenwriter Michael C. Martin. As gritty cop dramas go, Martin does an OK job of hitting all the major plot points, but as the film moves inexorably toward its climax, where the three storylines finally intersect, it feels more or less out of necessity than inevitability that they converge and leaves the audience to wonder why they were all part of the same movie in the first place. What saves the film from being just another mediocre cop movie are the performances from an all-star cast. Hawke is convincing as the cash-strapped, twitchy family man just desperate enough to steal drug money. With his grizzled demeanor and brooding mentality, Hawke brings just enough suspense to make the audience wonder will he or won't he. Cheadle is surprisingly convincing as conflicted undercover police officer Tango. He wants to get out of the world he's entrenched in and live the dream with a comfy desk job, but his loyalties have started to shift from his fellow police officers to the drug dealers he now sees as family. The most interesting relationship in the film is between Tango and Caz (played by Wesley Snipes), who formed a bond while in prison (Tango was undercover) and carried that brotherhood to the streets. Snipes turns in a solid performance as the formerly incarcerated drug kingpin who wants to score one last time and disappear from his old life, and it's delightful to see Cheadle and Snipes play off each other. The weakest storyline of the film, however, is that of alcoholic veteran Eddie, and though Gere consciously makes an effort to portray a man whose lack of enthusiasm for each day is evident, that listlessness translates to his performance and leaves the audience to wonder whether the film would be better off without him. The supporting cast includes a cameo by Vincent D'Onofrio as a shifty corrupt cop and Ellen Barkin as a foul-mouthed FBI agent, whose performance is completely unexpected but definitely welcome. Brooklyn's Finest isn't the greatest cop drama. At its best it's a character-driven story of desperate men doing desperate things in desperate situations; at its worst, however, it reveals itself as a film riddled with clich?s and happenstance. ~ Alaina O'Connor, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Boaz Davidson  Executive Producer 
Robert Greenhut  Executive Producer 
John Langley  Producer 
Avi Lerner  Executive Producer 
John Thompson  Producer 
Elie Cohn  Producer 
Danny Dimbort  Executive Producer 
Trevor Short  Executive Producer 
Marco Weber  Executive Producer 
Antoine Fuqua  Director 
Antoine Fuqua  Executive Producer 
Basil Iwanyk  Producer 
Marcelo Zarvos  Composer (Music Score) 
Mary Viola  Executive Producer 
Michael C. Martin  Screenwriter 
Jesse Kennedy  Executive Producer 
Brad Caleb Kane  Screenwriter 
Richard Gere  Actor 
Don Cheadle  Actor 
Ethan Hawke  Actor 
Wesley Snipes  Actor 
Vincent D'Onofrio  Actor 
Brian F. O'Byrne  Actor 
Will Patton  Actor 
Michael Kenneth Williams  Actor 
Lili Taylor  Actor 
Shannon Kane  Actor 
Ellen Barkin  Actor 
Wass W. Stevens  Actor 
Armando Riesco  Actor 
Wade Allain-Marcus  Actor 
Logan Marshall-Green  Actor 
Hassan Johnson  Actor 
Jas Anderson  Actor 
John D'Leo  Actor 
George DeNoto  Actor 
Alison Cordaro  Actor 
Francesca Carchia  Actor 
Raquel Castro  Actor 
Stella Maeve  Actor 
Gwen Stith  Actor 
Joshua Thompson  Actor 
Bruce MacVittie  Actor 
Robert John Burke  Actor 
Jerry Speziale  Actor 
Sarah Thompson  Actor 
Rodney "Bear" Jackson  Actor 
Cle "Bone" Sloan  Actor 
Michael Pemberton  Actor 
Zaire Paige  Actor 
Gregory Young  Actor 
Randy Eastman  Actor 
Thomas Jefferson Byrd  Actor 
Alain Lautre  Actor 
Joseph Adams  Actor 
Alok Tewari  Actor 
Matlok  Actor 
Zachary Fuqua  Actor 
Lela Rochon  Actor 
Ed Moran  Actor 
Isiah Whitlock, Jr.  Actor 
Leonid Citer  Actor 
Nicoye Banks  Actor 
Tobias Truvillion  Actor 
Tawny Cypress  Actor 
Jeanine Ramirez  Actor 
Rosalyn Coleman  Actor 
Paul Diomede  Actor 
Diana Bologna  Actor 

Country: USA