Customer Reviews

End of Watch [Blu-ray] [2012] [2102]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

End of Watch features Jake Gyllenhaal (Source Code) as Officer Brian Green and Michael Peña (Battle: Los Angeles) as his partner Officer Mike Zavala. The guys patrol a predominately Hispanic neighbourhood in down-town L.A. with a reputation for violence. The hood-mounted-camera based opening scenes see the guys get the baddies and the two become the cocksure heroes of the department. But when they continue to make strides in denting crime in the area, they step on the toes of some much more serious cartel criminals who have no respect for the law. As we see Officer Green and Zavala's personal lives bloom, it becomes clear that they are risking their lives on and off the job for the thrill of the chase, will they make it home alive?

Filmed as a series of POV cameras (either the hand-held the guys carry, their button cams or the mandatory dash/hood cams) this film documents the rise of two young and upcoming stars of the L.A.P.D. - both actors provide a tangible and affable relationship that really comes across - they honestly seemed to be the best of friends and this made the story and surrounding plotlines extremely believable. Anna Kendrick (Up In The Air) plays Gyllenhaal's plausible love-interest and deserves some credit for carrying the slower emotional side of the story - however the action is frenetic and continual. The duo get themselves into more fire-fights than the last stand at the Alamo and the direction, cinematography and choreography are all impeccable - credit to director David Ayer (he directed Training Day to give you an idea) - there is an excellent hip-hop based but laced with mariachi soundtrack to boot.

Most refreshingly, this steers well clear of the usual corrupt-cop story selling out someone in the department à la The Departed and comes across as much, much more original - it's a simple a premise as that. Cops bust bad guys; bad guys fight back - who comes out on top? Resultantly, I was stuck to my seat for the duration, weighing in at 109 minutes including credits. Highly recommended for a cop movie that expends more ammunition than your average war-film.

Interesting, moving, tense if sometimes uneven mix of very rough,
hand-held visual style, improvisational feeling acting, and occasionally
much more conventional plot turns. This study of two slightly gonzo,
gung-ho, but basically righteous Los Angeles cops is alternately deeply
engrossing and affecting, and occasionally frustrating.

When it all works, it feels about as real as any police drama I've ever
seen. (It's also too rare to see an heroic Hispanic lead character in a film
about a city where Latinos make up a huge part of the population)

When it gets in it's own way -- as when the camera-work becomes so
self-conscious that you start thinking about it (Why do so many
characters just happen to have cameras? Why are many of the shots from
angles that could never be from a home video camera, if this is
following a "found video" conceit?) or when the acting occasionally
stops feeling real and suddenly comes off as self- conscious improv. Or
when our heroes are in firefights that look real, but follow Hollywood
rules of logic as to how they turn out. At those points the film can be
maddening, just for undermining how good it is when it's on target.

Still, very worth seeing, and far more interesting than most of what
comes out of Hollywood.

Great film, how can anyone not like this film its brilliant, tense moving funny, and you really care about the two cops. the film starts out at a fast pace and keeps going, this film is essentially cool.
You get to see the cops lives as policemen and civilians, the acting is top notch from the two main lead men to all the additional actors and actresses who make the film what it is.
it has hand held camera moments but this is explained why, quickly and believably. it also has actual camera work as well so dont think this like paranormal activity with cops...its not.
Highly recommended, top notch film and one of the best cop based films and original cop based films iv have seen.

i really loved this film shot from the perspective of two LA cops through their day to day work. it felt new and
fresh and gave a great insight into that world. the two leads give an excellent and very believable performance jake as always is brilliant. a fast paced action film and one of the best films ive seen in ages

End of Watch is a forgettable title for a film which tries tremendously hard to be something more than it is: namely, a one-dimensional cop-buddy movie. Director David Ayer throws all sorts of modern lo-fi tricks at the screen to hustle up an authentic gritty vibe and achieves it, but then lets himself down with an orthodox and ultimately unambitious screenplay beset with cartoon villainy. The result is still an entertaining couple of hours, supported by strong performances from both leads and the supporting cast.

Set in South Central Los Angeles, officers Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Zavala (Michael Peña) are harness bulls with the LAPD who have a penchant for stumbling into situations beyond their pay grade: while Sarge (Frank Grillo) constantly exhorts them to be out there writing tickets, the boys can't help themselves: an opening sequence shows them pursuing then (justifiably) shooting dead armed offenders, and later, even a casual check in on a missing old lady turns up a huge cocaine shipment, a people smuggling operation and a mass of tortured and murdered immigrants.

Cinema vérité is provided courtesy of a filming style which you'll love or hate: being an aspiring amateur filmmaker, Taylor carries about his person several product-placed Canon handycams and about four "flip" recorders, and so we mostly watch early exchanges through his own, and jerky, erratic camera work. When the camera needs to be still to dispatch with plot exposition and character establishment, the director contrives to mounted it on the dash of the boys' Black & White, and is not averse splicing in to aerial shots and other conventional cinematic frames, somewhat giving the lie to the "found footage" intent. In any case, after a nauseating ten minute spell at the beginning, the framing does settle down a bit.

Now it is one thing having an aspiring film school police officer toting a camera World's-Scariest-Police-Chases style: it is another for the criminals he's pursuing to do the same thing. Both the not-so-bad African American gang and the baaad Mexican gang are obliged by this filming decision to be also compulsively filming themselves as they go about their gangster business. For a film which takes so many cues in its dialogue and attitude from The Wire, it well and truly missed this one: there's no way Omar or the boy Marlo would be seen dead on handycam; least of all in flagrante delicto shooting up the neighbourhood.

Things trundle on: in candid in in-car conversations we better get to know the boys, who reveal themselves to be good, well-intentioned lads, if crime-prone, and with loving families, and or at least designs on them. And then, without really the dramatic impetus to suggest it, suddenly everything goes wrong. It seems the really, really baaaaaaad dudes down in Mexico are finally sick of these troublesome priests, and resolve through their local agents to do something about it: We have arrived at the final reel. Ayer does not disappoint, although he does then tack on a bizarre coda after the action is complete that I can't fathom, other than as a means of providing a stronger up-beat to the finale.

This is an entertaining but, at its extremities, slightly potty film. Performances from the leads are all strong - Gyllenhaal and Peña are excellent, but cracks are visible in its heavy reliance on style, and weakly scripted villains.

Olly Buxton

"End of Watch" was an interesting enough film but it had no real plot and most of the characters in it were unlikeable. It is a sort of update on the cop buddy film genre except that the two leading cops in it are rough and fairly repulsive in a film where the cops often seemed to be as bad and mean as the criminals. The cops language was filthy with constant swearing and most of them were quite unpleasant.It was often hard to make out their dialogue as they used the same sort of ghetto argot as the baddies. The criminals they were chasing were all pretty nasty and vicious- gun toting ,foul mouthed drug peddling gangsters in the main. As I said theres not much of a plot to the movie-it just follows the two main cops as they go about their daily , quite dangerous ,routine.However they soon find themselves the target of a hit by a drugs cartel whom they have upset once too often with their busts of human trafficking and drugs scams. Can they survive this plot on their lives ? The film is interspersed with scenes from the two cops domestic lives and buddy talk about their women ,however this fails to endear them to the viewer in any way. The ending is worth waiting for and it is the highlight of a film which is disjointed ,random, vicious and essentially plotless.

Jake Gyllenhaal and partner Michael Peña have stealthy cameras on their shirts, and Gyllenhaal carries a camera around with him as they handle calls and keep watch over Los Angeles fighting crimes and chatting comically , the two often handle inferior predicaments as their commonplace lives progress, romance blossoms, children are conceived and birthed. But, when the two discover a stash-house of Cartel human trafficking, things begin to take a nasty twist, and a hit is called out on the duo.
Sounds riveting right? well it should be and to an extent there are some intense moments but these materialise and fade out all too quickly..plus the actual plot only really kicks in after some considerable time has passed but then the film does not have left to run. This is why End of Watch is a crushing disappointment. I can understand it's high accolades though due to at least trying to be fresher than a lot of other cop thrillers of late, it just did not quite jell for me.

The film is mostly shot in a gritty shaky cam style which more often than not becomes irritating. The structure is messy and there are some stale references to Training Day and most of Ayer's other work thrown in. It is gritty, acerbic and an earnest approach to two coppers trying to serve and protect in a harsh world but despite the good performances from the two leads, they were totally unlikable and sometimes as repellant as the guys they were after, though humanity does win through in the end. Lets not mention the racially stereotypical Mexicans etc which also brings very amateurish acting from minor characters.

In the end it is a series of documentary style vignettes leading to a mediocre, predictable narrative. Its like the makers chucked a load of scenes off the top of a building and then pieced them together how they landed. Intriguing, occasionally intense but ultimately sagging and cluttered. Two worthy performances from Pena and Jake though that keep everything just above the 'nodding off' mark.

Possible spoilers

The open sequences are highly paced with a black and white chasing down another vehicle we hear voices and but see no actors until there is a shootout, where the bad guys are blown away. We are then introduced to Officers Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Zavala (Michael Peña) who are on patrol south central LA. They're cool cops sporting Oakley straight edge sunglasses.

After a compulsory break, due to the fatal shooting of the bad guys there is an investigation that exonerates them of any wrong doing and they return to duty. However, life for these two is never dull - as what should be a routine traffic stop leads to the discovery of weapons and drug money linked to a Mexican cartel, add to this, their apparent bust up of a slave den and narcotics hall earns our two intrepid heroes the number one spot on the hit list of a leading cartel gang.

There are scenes of self-documentation in the beginning of the movie, as we see our two cops video documenting there daily routine. On the flip side we have the `Curb-side' gang who seem to be doing the same thing.
The narrative of this tale can be at times seem some what preposterous; as this is a top-a heavy blend of action and theatre, The director Mr Ayer pushes this film at a pace, It helps that Gyllenhaal and Peña are likeable and their interactions work very well as they bounce a mix of Cop speak and street slang off each other. Everyone else in this action-man male bonding love feast are purely there for window dressing or they are there to reinforce and contextualise how strongly these guys feel for each other, that includes there significant others. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, flaws and all - well worth a look