Street Kings

Directed by David Ayer (Training Day) and based on a story by James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential), Street Kings promises big returns just from the opening credits. Keanu Reeves may have finally shed his Bill and Ted persona here, in his first big role since The Matrix trilogy. He plays nuance, and though his Capt. Tom Ludlow follows the fat cats’ orders and is known as one of their best, you can see a glimmer in his eye that maybe he’s not quite as caught up in the corruption as others might think. Ludlow gets tangled up with his captain/friend Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker), and Capt. James Biggs from Internal Affairs (Hugh Laurie), who has his eye on him after Ludlow finds himself on the scene when two gangbangers shoot one of his fellow officers in an apparent convenience-store holdup. Against orders to drop any investigation, Ludlow finds an unlikely partner in straight-shooter Det. Paul Discant (Chris Evans). Together they hit the streets to track down the officer’s killers, with help from OG Scribble (Cedric the Entertainer). They stumble upon a bigger case than they had imagined.