A real eyeful from a cop chronicler
Writer/director David Ayer is the kind of filmmaker who does his homework, and it’s the kind that’s guaranteed to make you wince.
He knows, for example, just how far you can shove a knife into an eyeball without killing a guy. It’s five inches, in case you’re wondering — but don’t get any ideas.
This was info Ayer needed for his new movie, End of Watch, a buddycop LAPD procedural starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña, opening Friday following its TIFF world premiere.
“Yeah, you can put a knife in someone’s eye to just past the ear, like five inches, and still not hit brain,” Ayer matter-of-factly says.
“And there have been cases where someone tries to kill themselves and they’ll hold a gun to their temple by their eyes, and they’ll blow out their eyes and their sinus cavity and not even touch their brain.”
Ayer also knows how a man can beat a drug test: by inserting a turkey baster filled with saline into the penis and blasting the contents straight into the bladder to flush out the dope. This is what Christian Bale’s bad-cop character does in Harsh Times, Ayer’s previous film.
“When the stakes are high enough, you can absolutely force it in,” Ayer says — and no, he has no idea if Lance Armstrong knows about this technique.
These and other leg-crossing details come under the category of “navy lore” to Ayer, 44, who has built a career out of writing and/or directing rough and realistic films about the LAPD.
His other cop-film credits include Training Day, S.W.A.T., Street Kings
and Dark Blue, but Ayer, whose newly shaved noggin makes him look tougher than he probably intends to be, insists he never planned on pounding the LAPD movie beat.
“I grew up in South L.A. and it’s just something that I’m really good at. I never planned on doing another LAPD movie. I’d been trying to get other kinds of movies made, but I wasn’t having any luck — and then a friend of mine sort of suggested that I should do a foundfootage cop movie.
“I didn’t think that was such a good idea. In figuring out why I shouldn’t, at some point I realized why I should. And I have a cop friend who showed me a bunch of video. He and his buddies take video cameras to work and he showed me some of this footage, because — guess what, people? — cops are like everyone else. When something cool happens, the iPhone comes out and it’s on video. It’s the ultimate highlights reel, and it sort of ranges from hilarious to heinous. It’s a fantastic tool to tell a story with.”
He decided while making End of
Watch that the found-footage conceit, which has been used to the point of yawns in recent cinema, wasn’t necessary or desirable for the entire film.
“The movie was originally going to be the video that the cops, the characters, had shot themselves and it ultimately became this strange hybrid. I know there are supposed to be genre rules and the film geeks are going to crucify me for not following all the little rules.
“I had a free hand to do what I wanted and I used every available method to tell the story that I could think of.”
He laughs at the idea that a movie about good cops should be considered a novelty. Some really bad stuff goes down in the film — such as that knife to the eyeball — but also a lot of quality law enforcement.
He’s delighted by the performances he got from Gyllenhaal and Peña, who bond on screen and who have remained fast friends.
“Their characters are just regular guys, punching the clock and doing their work. They believe in their mission and they are actually good cops and it’s funny that the big twist, the big hook these days, is that they are good guys. It’s harder in a way to tell the story of good police because the corruption angle gives you so much fodder and dramatic fuel.”
End of Watch is one movie that Ayer doesn’t have to worry about offending his police pals with. Quite the opposite, in fact. “They love it. It’s weird because the same thing comes out of everyone’s mouth: ‘It’s like finally somebody got it right about the job!’ Different agencies and organizations, everyone says the same thing. It’s amazing.” If End of Watch reminds you of a TV cop show, that’s fine by Ayer. He grew up watching and loving the old Adam-12 series starring Martin Milner and Kent McCord. “I loved those guys. It’s that episodic thing where they would go from radio call to radio call and at the end of the day they were dream-book cops. These guys, although they’re good cops and they aren’t breaking the rules, they’re very real, modern dudes — they’re bros.’’ Ayer inspires loyalty in the people who work with him. He managed to get Gyllenhaal and Peña to commit to a five-month film shoot and also dozens of “ride alongs” with real LAPD officers. “I was really moved by the story,” Gyllenhaal says. “I think it was a world I started to venture into and I just fell for. “David asked for a certain commitment and I was ready to make that commitment. The nature of the style of filming was POV and you have to be able to be as authentic as possible. Coming where I come from, with very little experience in this world, I knew I had to immerse myself in it. My first ride-along I went on, I witnessed a murder.” Making the film involved a fair bit of real pain, Peña adds. He has a scene where he goes mano a mano with a gangsta who challenges him. “That guy wasn’t going 100 percent, but he was hitting and I had to block. Sometimes I wasn’t as lucky and he’d hit me in the ear and it’d be brutal. Painful! “It was a lot of work, but the way you do it so you won’t see the acting is by doing a lot of it. There was a lot of preparation with the guns and the tactical training and also the fighting. We wanted to make it as real as possible. I’m not a method actor but I came as close as I could possibly get with this one.” As for keeping it real, Ayer offers a couple of other “navy lore” tips. Should you ever have the misfortune of encountering a guy with a knife in his eye, don’t try to pull it out. “Leave it in. Tape it in place, let the professionals deal with it. I’ve seen that.” Perhaps more practical advice is what to do the next time a cop pulls you over. It might help you beat a ticket: “The first thing you’ve got to do when they ask the question, ‘Do you know why I’m pulling you over?’ is to admit it: ‘Yeah, I blew the light.’ “The second you lie to them, you’re just another scumbag. They can’t let you off with a warning if you don’t know what you violated. There’s a taxonomy of law enforcement. The guys I know who work in the ’hood and work gangs and those sort of things, they could care less about a traffic violation. They don’t want to be sucked into giving you a ticket when they can go take guns, money and dope off the streets.”