End of Watch follows two police officers - Brian Taylor(Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala(Michael Pena) - as they cruise around South Central Los Angelas. After a number of encounters with the typical people you'd find in the ghetto among other things, they end up becoming marked for death by the Cartels.
I loved the intro, however contradictory it was, and it attained my interest immediately. As the film progressed, it became more and more of a David Ayer film which is a good thing. His style of filmmaking and writing are instantly recognizable. The film promoted great performances from its two leads as well as its secondary characters and the chemistry between Gyllenhaal and Pena was great. It's one of the best buddy-cop films I've seen in a long time. It also puts a spin on the "found footage" type of making film. It doesn't have a cameraman, just Gyllenhaal and Pena's characters recording with their own cameras, more predominately Gyllenhaal. It was pretty authentic and seemed like it didn't listen to anyone. Except the end, where it fell apart.
I enjoyed the first while of it. I understood the film it was trying to be and it achieved that. Now that it was there, it didn't know where to go, it seemed like Ayer lost track of what he wanted to write and just continued on with same thing. It became a bit repetitive. After much deliberation with dragged out scenes and unnecessary scenes really, it got into it. And when it did, it didn't know which way was up. The ending should have been completely changed, the last 20 minutes or so. It didn't keep in tone with the whole rest of the film and just wasn't good. Could have been a bit shorter, and a better ending it would have been in countenance for the best film of 2012. Had so much hope and so much going for it. I'll still go and see the next David Ayer film however, as I did like this.
A modest 7/10.
I loved the intro, however contradictory it was, and it attained my interest immediately. As the film progressed, it became more and more of a David Ayer film which is a good thing. His style of filmmaking and writing are instantly recognizable. The film promoted great performances from its two leads as well as its secondary characters and the chemistry between Gyllenhaal and Pena was great. It's one of the best buddy-cop films I've seen in a long time. It also puts a spin on the "found footage" type of making film. It doesn't have a cameraman, just Gyllenhaal and Pena's characters recording with their own cameras, more predominately Gyllenhaal. It was pretty authentic and seemed like it didn't listen to anyone. Except the end, where it fell apart.
I enjoyed the first while of it. I understood the film it was trying to be and it achieved that. Now that it was there, it didn't know where to go, it seemed like Ayer lost track of what he wanted to write and just continued on with same thing. It became a bit repetitive. After much deliberation with dragged out scenes and unnecessary scenes really, it got into it. And when it did, it didn't know which way was up. The ending should have been completely changed, the last 20 minutes or so. It didn't keep in tone with the whole rest of the film and just wasn't good. Could have been a bit shorter, and a better ending it would have been in countenance for the best film of 2012. Had so much hope and so much going for it. I'll still go and see the next David Ayer film however, as I did like this.
A modest 7/10.