Movie Reviews

“Training Day” writer David Ayer takes us once again deep in the underbelly of South Central LA with “End Of Watch”, a movie that blows some much-needed fresh air in the buddy cop genre. Join Officer Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Officer Zavala (Michael Peña) in their police cruiser as they roam the streets looking for baddies while insulting one another. The interaction between the two is amazing and you really feel for them as they get in way over their heads after having come across a Mexican drug cartel.

Ayer directs the whole thing as if it were an episode of Cops, utilizing the camera in the cruiser and little clip-on cameras that Taylor uses to make a documentary for his film class. It’s a bit chaotic at times but luckily never gets confusing. And whenever a scene requires it though, Ayer has no problem switching formats.

The only thing that prevents “End Of Watch” from being an even better movie are the poorly written bad guys who seem uncapable of uttering more than monosyllabic curse words. Hell, one of them is actually called Big Evil!