End of Watch
Written and Directed by David Ayer
Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Martinez, David Harbour, America Ferrera, Cody Horn, Frank Grillo.
This film follows the lives of two uniformed officers who patrol the rough South Central Los Angeles night time shift. Over several months it shows the relationships between their co workers, those who live on the streets, their significant others, and more importantly themselves.
When we meet them, Brian Taylor (Gyllenhaal) is doing a class for college and is recording the daily events of his job. He is single, and has recently met a young lady named Janet (Kendrick). His partner is Mike Zavala (Peña), who due to his Mexican heritage, feels a sense of – for the suburbs he protects.
Very well directed film with characters ‘vlogging’ their lives throughout the movie. As mentioned earlier, Brian documents his, and some of the antagonists that they come up against also recording their own experiences. The mix of this, and the camera angles within the police car, the cameras on the characters vest cams, gives it an almost ‘home movie/found footing’ style look, which adds to the narrative.
The cast do a great job, with the leads very believable in their respective roles and show a good dynamic between the two very different character types. Taylor is beginning his journey into a relationship and fatherhood, and Zavala – who has been married for some time, also beginning his journey into fatherhood.
The second act arc that occurs due to Taylor and Zavala’s work felt a little far-fetched, especially in what til that point in the film was mostly realistic. While I appreciate this was for cinematic narrative, it did feel like it took away from the integrity of what was done up until that point.
As I am not a LA native (or even from USA) my take on this film is of an outsider, so I can only assume some of what was done, too was for cinematic effect.
Still, I quite enjoyed this, and felt all the performers as well as director Ayer did a good job.
3.5/5