Brooklyn’s Finest (2009) BBC 1 11.25pm. Director Antoine Fulqua.

Brooklyn’s Finest are, of course, all cops. When I see a film like this I always thing of The Wire, multiple storylines, flawed human, no discernible difference between cops, drug dealers or robbers. They’re all just trying to get by, flawed human beings, making mistakes. I don’t know if thats’ like The Wire, cause I’ve never seen The Wire, only read about it. In the opening shots, for example, the camera tracks through a car window. Sal(vatore)  Procida ( Ethan Hawke) is  having a conversation in a car  with Carlo and they are discussing the justice and morality of the latter escaping a conviction for drunk driving. They laugh and joke and seem to have reached some kind of agreement, when Sal shoots him. We think he’s some kind of low-life gangster, or perhaps a serial killer. He confesses to a priest in the confessional what he’d done, but he doesn’t ask for absolution. He asks for vindication and God’s help.  Only later, when he’s stashing the money he’s taken from his victim in his house, and he turns up at roll call for the police department, do we realise he’s a cop.

    Similarly, Officer Edward "Eddie" Dugan (Richard Gere) is shown as a bum that drinks whiskey  and plays Russian roulette before coming to work. He’s a week from retirement after 22 years of service to the force and has no friends in the force. His only friend outside office hours is a prostitute, he pays for her time.  He is assigned to oversee a fresh faced cop keen to prove himsef on the force. This too ends in tragedy. Gere ends up in a cupboard-like room and in a poignant shot, his badge taken from him and flung into a box stuffed full of other -nameless- badges.   

    Detective Clarence "Tango" Butler (Don Cheadle) is an undercover cop, a drug lord, supplies drugs on the street. He’s got the woman, the fast cars and the fancy apartment, but at home, in his other life, his wife is divorcing him. He sees first hand how the cops harass and murder with impunity in his hood, but he wants out, a desk job and shiny shoes.  He’s promised promotion if he sets up a deal to bring down his only true friend, Casanova "Caz" Phillips (Wesley Snipes)who saved his life (it’s not really clear how) and has recently been released on a technicality from Federal prison, but the Feds are desperate to get him back inside.  It’ll look good on someone’s record.

Everyone’s fucked up, everyone corrupt and their storylines cross in a denouement that brings all those chickens home to roots at the same time and the same day. It’s a bit of Malcolm X, a bit of Aristotle and dollops of social realism. If you like films gritter than a sand wedge, this is the one for you.