I can't believe some of the negative posts written about this movie, and although it isn't without its flaws it is still film worthy of your valuable viewing time. That is if you consider yourself as anything of a "serious" cinema enthusiast, as opposed to a common or garden movie fan. I have given it a maximum score of 10 stars, not that it deserves 10 stars but just to attempt to redress the balance a little.
It isn't a feel good entertainment, it is grim, it is seedy and although I didn't find it harrowing I could quite understand if some viewers did. However I actually finished up having quite a lot of sympathy for the Dave Brown character. I feel he is a man who works to his own moral compass, he has served his country in Vietnam and his community as a police officer, he tries to be a good father. If he can bust a meth lab by roughing up a shop lifter then so be it. He allegedly murdered a serial rapist. He is the type of cop that Hollywood movies and the popular culture glorify, the tough cop whose unconventional methods get results. Only this is "real life" and as such he is betrayed at every turn, his country betrays him for being a soldier in an unpopular ( i.e. losing ) war, the Police department he works for is out to pin him to the wall as a diversion from the more endemic scandal it has to face, his friends ( I'm thinking the Ned Beaty character, General and his lover ) turn there back on him and finally his family turn on him too. You may say he deserves it, but I don't think so.
All the performances from the first rate cast are great, you can really see them getting there teeth into the roles. Much of it looks and feels like ad lib, particularly any scene involving Dave and one of the many women in his life. The movie is shot in a cross between a gritty fly on the wall documentary style and surveillance footage. Many scenes are filmed through a foreground object, like through the branches of a bush or the gap in a curtain or through a window. Some are filmed from far away as if the viewer was a peeping Tom or surveillance operative and it gives weight to Dave's feelings of paranoia. Through this lens LA is a soulless, grimy, squalid, and above all dangerous place to be, which is about right. It is a foreign and alien world, even to its native inhabitants. That is the world through Dave Brown's eyes, it is A truth but not necessarily THE truth. If the film is about injustice, racism, sexism and intolerance then what does it say of our intolerance of Dave Brown? Until we have seen the world through his eyes, who are we to judge?
It isn't a feel good entertainment, it is grim, it is seedy and although I didn't find it harrowing I could quite understand if some viewers did. However I actually finished up having quite a lot of sympathy for the Dave Brown character. I feel he is a man who works to his own moral compass, he has served his country in Vietnam and his community as a police officer, he tries to be a good father. If he can bust a meth lab by roughing up a shop lifter then so be it. He allegedly murdered a serial rapist. He is the type of cop that Hollywood movies and the popular culture glorify, the tough cop whose unconventional methods get results. Only this is "real life" and as such he is betrayed at every turn, his country betrays him for being a soldier in an unpopular ( i.e. losing ) war, the Police department he works for is out to pin him to the wall as a diversion from the more endemic scandal it has to face, his friends ( I'm thinking the Ned Beaty character, General and his lover ) turn there back on him and finally his family turn on him too. You may say he deserves it, but I don't think so.
All the performances from the first rate cast are great, you can really see them getting there teeth into the roles. Much of it looks and feels like ad lib, particularly any scene involving Dave and one of the many women in his life. The movie is shot in a cross between a gritty fly on the wall documentary style and surveillance footage. Many scenes are filmed through a foreground object, like through the branches of a bush or the gap in a curtain or through a window. Some are filmed from far away as if the viewer was a peeping Tom or surveillance operative and it gives weight to Dave's feelings of paranoia. Through this lens LA is a soulless, grimy, squalid, and above all dangerous place to be, which is about right. It is a foreign and alien world, even to its native inhabitants. That is the world through Dave Brown's eyes, it is A truth but not necessarily THE truth. If the film is about injustice, racism, sexism and intolerance then what does it say of our intolerance of Dave Brown? Until we have seen the world through his eyes, who are we to judge?