‘Street Kings’ proves lackluster

By Robert W. Butler

The movie’s not intellectually challenging, but it can get complicated.

The air is thick with tough-guy talk but there’s mostly hot air at the core of “Street Kings,” a tale of corruption in which the cops are the crooks.

Keanu Reeves is Tom Ludlow, a member of an elite anti-vice unit in the LAPD and a controversial loose cannon. In the opening sequence he bursts into the lair of thugs who have kidnapped a couple of teenage girls and summarily executes the miscreants. Before backup arrives, Ludlow scatters guns so that it looks as though he met with resistance and had no choice but to go Rambo.

The other members of his unit (Jay Mohr, John Corbett, Amaury Nolesco) resent Ludlow hogging all the glory and headlines. But their commander, the fiercely ambitious Capt. Wander (Forest Whitaker), protects his star detective, thinking he can ride Ludlow’s solving of high profile cases right into the chief’s office.

But their days may be numbered. There’s an internal affairs officer (Hugh Laurie) sniffing around, trying to bring down the unit. And Ludlow’s former partner from back in his uniformed days — the strictly by-the-book Washington (Terry Crews) — has been giving damning information to IAD about Ludlow’s long-standing misbehavior.

So when Washington is gunned down, suspicion falls on Ludlow.

After that things get pretty complicated.

“Street Kings” originated in a short story by crime writer James Ellroy, who specializes in labyrinthine plots (remember “L.A. Confidential”?) and tales of police perfidy. The screenplay Ellroy has written with Kurt Wimmer and Jamie Moss twists like an Ozarks highway, but it rarely engages the intellect, much less the emotions.

Part of the problem is that there’s nobody to root for here. Reeves’ Ludlow isn’t exactly likable — which needn’t be fatal as long as the movie has a compelling narrative and interesting characters.

But “Street Kings” is populated with macho-soaked types who spew testosterone like it’s a competitive event and seem to have no lives beyond the job. Their aggressiveness comes off as cartoonish.

The director is David Ayers, who wrote the excellent “Training Day.” Here he also samples successful films about police corruption — you can hear echoes of “Serpico,” “Prince of the City” and TV’s “The Shield” — but the results are lackluster.

Just a lot of huffing and puffing ... and nothing gets blown down.