Blowhard, Esq. writes:

An alternate title for this could be LAPD: Awesomest Police Force on Earth. The cinematographer, Roman Vasyanov, is a Russian who studied at Moscow’s Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography where his mentor was Vadim Usov, Tarovsky’s cameraman on SOLARIS and ANDREI RUBLEV. Yet another movie whose visual style is heavily influenced by YouTube and GoPros with a healthy dose of JACKASS. The opening chase sequence looks like a combination of Russian dashcam footage and Grand Theft Auto.

The story is loose yet deliberate as it alternates between the work and family life of two beat cops played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña. William Friedkin said it “may be the best cop movie ever made” and I’m guessing he appreciated how far the movie was willing to push its characters. Director-writer David Ayer, screenwriter of the great TRAINING DAY and the first FAST AND FURIOUS, nicely ratchets up the tension with each successive scene. Like the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, it soon becomes apparent that these cops are in over their heads. The film almost pines for the halcyon days of the 90s when all cops had to worry about was black and Hispanic gang members shooting one another over territory, as opposed to dealing with the Aztec savagery of the Sinaloa drug cartel. A Navy veteran, Ayer has a good ear for how men bond in extreme situations while both Gyllenhaal and Peña lend the movie a believable broham camaraderie.

Related

• An interview with Roman Vasyanov.
• Here’s the trailer.