A different hue of blue
End of Watch sneaks up on you.
It begins as just another LAPD cop story, something writer/ director David Ayer is all too familiar with, having written Training Day and directed Harsh Times and Street Kings.
It also starts as just another found-footage conceit. Jake Gyllenhaal’s Officer Brian Taylor is packing tiny cameras, one for him and one for his patrol partner, Officer Mike Zavala (Michael Peña).
Ex-marine Taylor is studying film at night school, and he wants to make a video — in defiance of police rules — on what it’s really like patrolling L.A.’s rock-hard South Central ’hood.
Thankfully, you don’t have to get too far into End of Watch before it changes into something far more interesting: a buddy story of two good cops who are just trying to do the right thing, albeit with a little on-the-job improvising.
“Try not to kill anybody before end of watch,” a superior says, as Taylor and Zavala are assigned to the South Central patrol.
Easier said than done. Crime is so rampant in the city’s toughest division, even the good cops have to turn a blind eye to petty offences, because there’s too much really bad stuff going down to keep them occupied.
But Taylor and Zavala are nothing if not game, joking about how getting their daily bread involves chasing and busting “all the food groups: dope, money and guns.” The film plays at times like an extended version of TV’s COPS ( and also the old Adam-12), but this is no knock against it.
The two partners don’t immediately seem like a great match. Highstrung Taylor is used to doing things his own way, and he’ll barrel into a situation without much forethought. A bachelor, he’s pretty cavalier about women, too, although he’s found an interesting match in new gal Janet (Anna Hendrick).
Zavala is an easygoing family guy, with a pregnant wife (Natalie Martinez) and many other relations to keep him busy and in line. This doesn’t mean he’s not willing to rock ’n’ roll when occasion demands, as it frequently does. Like Taylor, he’s ready to flash the badge, cock the gun and pound the fist, especially if it means backing his partner.
The dedication to their jobs and to each other is really put to the test when they run afoul of drug lords during a routine traffic stop.
After so many films, not just Ayer’s, where LAPD cops are depicted as corrupt, homicidal or suicidal, it’s refreshing to see one where the boys in blue really are the good guys for a change.
And also the girls in blue. America Ferrera and Cody Horn play fellow LAPD officers who have seen it all, too, including someone getting a knife to the eye in a scene that would almost be comical, if it weren’t so horrifying.