End of Watch Review
You say your life lacks intensity? This movie is the cure.
In January when I do my end of the year retrospective I am going to remember this weekend as the most awesome weekend of movie releases ever. Dredd was freaking amazing, and now I have End of Watch to be the second in a run of tremendous movies.
Director David Ayer did Training Day, one of my previous all time favorite cop movies, and it is fair to say I went into this film with extremely high expectations. This is often a big mistake, as it sets the stage for massive disappointment when the director proves he only has one good effort in him and trips on his own private parts. However, this was not the case for End of Watch as it managed to actually exceed my high expectations.
There are some obvious comparisons to Training Day, but in truth I believe it has more in common with the 1988 Sean Penn movie Colors. It has a similar feel being shot over a period of several months without a true central plot or antagonist. It is a true buddy movie, showing the daily lives and traumas of two LAPD cops, Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal-Donnie Darko, Source Code, Brokeback Mountain) and Mike Zavala (Michael Peña-30 Minutes or Less, Tower Heist, Shooter). The whole movie is shot found footage style, except for when the director didn’t feel like coming up with an excuse to have a camera involved and blew it off. This is actually my one real criticism of the film. If you are going to do found footage cool, but don’t go to the trouble of establishing a reason for cameras to always be around and then bailing on it to do a bunch of standard POV shots.
Fortunately the rest of the movie makes up for this problem. During the course of several months (or maybe even years) you see the two men laugh, joke, and bromance each other to the hilt. Brian starts off as the single ladies man while Mike has been married since high school. You see Brian develop a strong romance and eventually marry my other future wife Anna Kendrick (50/50, Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, Up in the Air) while Mike’s wife Gabby (Natalie Martinez-Death Race, Saints and Sinners, Magic City Memoirs) delivers a baby boy. Each scene is filmed around a particular event in their career; a pulled over vehicle resulting in a drug bust, the discovery of a bunch of corpses, etc. Some of them are loosely connected to a Mexican drug cartel that eventually puts a hit out on the two officers. Multiple shootings occur. Cars get chased, and the last 20 minutes of this film will most likely be the most intense movie scene you have experienced in years.
Before I get into the stars and black holes I would like to say that this movie draws you in like no other that I have seen in a long time. The combination of the found footage with the amazing performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena cause you to develop a real connection with them and honestly care about what happens. 
I am pretty much a robotic shell of a man, but by the end of this film this movie manage to reach deep inside and stimulate the frozen chunk of coal that passes for my heart to actually beat a couple times. All that excess blood ran to the decrepit emotional part of my brain and I was in series danger of exhibiting an emotional response. Fortunately I was able to quash it but you humans should be able to really get something from this. (Obey Robot image one of the many nerd t-shirts I have in my collection)
The stars. The acting was truly amazing. Oscar nomination worthy IMO. Three stars. All the support characters were great. One star. You actually care about what happens to the characters. One star. I got to experience the most alien of emotions a regular movie attendee can: excitement. Two stars. For a found footage film pacing was brilliant. One star. The women in this film were good eye candy without distracting from the film. One star. They managed to fit in a bunch of interesting minor sub plots without hurting the overall movie (one advantage to not really having an overall plot, I guess). One star. The action was well done in the confines of found footage. Somehow a 15 second gun battle seen through the dashboard camera of a police car is much more exciting than a full production running gun battle. One star. Truly a great cinema experience. Two stars. Total: thirteen stars.
The black holes. The sudden shift from found footage to POV camera is a little annoying. One black hole. There was something of a lack of overall story that I think might have helped, but honestly I am just picking at nits here. It is fine without it, but one black hole. Total: two black holes.
A grand total of eleven stars, and yet another recommendation to see this film. That’s two great movies to review in a row. I keep waiting for the Earth to stop spinning on its axis. See both this film and Dredd at your earliest convenience, although you might not want to see them back to back as you could die of an awesomeness overdose. Date movie? I’m going to say yes on this one. The emotional interaction between the characters could very well speak to a woman, and while Jake Gyllenhaal is kind of a pretty boy I think you might gain some kind of bounce back from him into your bed, if you know what I mean. Bathroom break? This is another film I am going to say you want to see in its entirety, but if you super sized and can’t hold it Brian’s wedding could be mostly missed I think, especially when everyone starts drinking. Just hurry back.
Thanks for reading. If I have the energy I might go see something else later tonight, but I am afraid of ruining my streak. It’s going to happen eventually, however, and bad movies tend to make for funnier review. There isn’t much entertainment to be had listening to me gush like a fan boy. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have any comments on this movie or review please post them here, and if you have any off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
