Street Kings

"It’s been a while since we’ve had a decent LAPD drama. Street Kings provides a welcome return to the slums of South Central, where gangsters, pimps and corrupt policemen roam amongst the convenience stores and chicken-wire fences."

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

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

"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."

""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."

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

"In Ellroy's original scenario "Street Kings" was a period piece, set in the 1990s just after the Rodney King riots. I wonder if it would've made more sense that way. As is, it unfolds in a present that feels dislocated and artificial, where everybody talks fancy-gangster talk while turning the mean streets even meaner."

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