In Theaters: Brooklyn's Finest

Fuqua often seems equally unable to control himself: the script's initial full-court press of information and character introduction is frequently undercut by self-impressed filmmaking. From lingering on Hawke's tortured reaction shots to showy mirror work with Gere and a baffling shot-reverse-shot conversation sequence that has both Cheadle and his partner speaking directly to camera, Fuqua can't seem to get out of his own way, in love with a certain angle or effect despite the distraction it creates from the story.

What comes across cleanly is a satisfying hit of Brooklyn grunge: shot largely on location, Fuqua moves from precincts to projects to slumlord walk-ups, going not for realism but an invocation of the bad old Brooklyn that even those of us who live there see mostly in the movies. Forced to tutor new recruits during his last few days on the job, Eddie's first lesson for his young partner, as they cruise through roughest Brownsville, is in respecting turf boundaries above all else. In their case that means ignoring a domestic battery taking place in plain sight because it's outside of their precinct's jurisdiction -- it's the right thing, but is it the good thing? For an apathetic cop like Eddie -- whom we meet, in a cringing bit of narrative economy, pouring whiskey and putting an empty gun in his mouth within seconds of waking up -- a moral awakening is a pretty long shot. Gere inhabits Eddie's defeat with winning and occasionally moving subtlety, particularly in his scenes with his favorite prostitute, who is played with startling warmth and pragmatism by Shannon Kane.

As each man moves inexorably toward the consequences of his moral bargaining (first-time screenwriter Michael C. Martin has each of their fates play out in the same projects complex), Fuqua seems to slow his otherwise judicious pacing down for an elongated triple climax. The actual terms of each cop's showdown don't bear much scrutiny: less culminations than machinations, all three are resolved according to their actions, and the upshot is fairly pat, if unpretty -- Fuqua seems to have a special fondness for mouths that babble with blood. In a perverse bit of Brooklyn justice, the film's climax succumbs to the struggle animated by its characters: It's not the wrong ending, but that doesn't make it a good one.

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