End of Watch

Sure, I could complain here about the camera and the sobriety with which this movie is made. However, I knew what I was getting into, and most importantly, there is still a high number of actors which I was really looking forward to. And so I started watching End of Watch, and lo and behold, it’s actually a beautiful and honest movie portraying the demanding work of police officers in Los Angeles, who fight drug cartels every day. It’s a kind of a peek into this world, plus it’s incredibly human, natural, and beautifully non-affected. I have to admit, I don’t do this every day, but I simply ignored the flaws of the camera in this movie. While at the beginning it wasn’t exactly a hit, the premise, the filmmaking craft and the actors made me praise it in the end. End of Watch may not be a film for everyone but giving it a chance is worth it. Maybe it can also surprise other people like me, who can’t stand shaky cameras. (09/05/2014)

Without a solid plot skeleton, but with skillful direction and tight dramaturgical grip, David Ayer serves up a few snippets from the lives of ordinary cops who don't take drugs or bribes, but enforce the law to the best of their knowledge and conscience. It’s a good change that Ayer could have managed without the POV, but thanks to well-written and even better-acted characters (Gyllenhaal and Peña are one of the most coordinated cop duos ever), it works in every moment; including the fact that the last scene is absolutely the most emotional. 4 ½. (16/01/2013)

A film that switches between a POV perspective and "classic" hand-held filming, between passion / police sentiment and a distant monitoring of strange guys for whom the service is an adrenaline ride (and it significantly affects them). The action scenes are brilliant and I must admit that I haven't felt such intense tension for a long time (Elite Squad?) - the combination of personal perspective and raw digital camera works great. As well as the everyday dialogues of both protagonists full of LA dialect and mundaneness. It is worse in terms of the attempts to look into privacy, in which the POV is a bit un-conceptual and disruptive, often as if it should rather obscure quite banal phrases. At the same time, End of Watch has no trouble dropping this sentiment several times. Unfortunately, the lavage between irony and fascination is mostly felt at the end, which is heading toward big things, but in the end it repeats semi-pathetically that which even a blind person could not miss... I give it what I give it for the great Gyllenhaal, the "unresolved" motif of guilt and a few great moments (the final shoot-out, the scene with a search of the house of the "old woman"). P.S. It would be interesting to compare "filming methods" in relation to Stone's thematically related film Savages! (05/11/2012)

A film so engrossed in its own form that it’s not important whether or not it has any content. The hypermedialised style without strictly maintained continuity between shots is partly excused by the fragmented nature of the plot; however, it’s a shame that its modernism is not appropriately reflected in the impression that the film makes, which is conversely very conservative (glorification of police work, suppression of signs of latent homosexuality in favour of the traditional family model). The actions of the central duo, who have transformed their service to their country into something between a video game and a reality show, are not subjected to criticism, which would be weakened anyway by the “empathetic” acceptance of their viewpoint and the expansion of the look into their lives with the addition of the private realm. Both of them obviously suffer from problems with self-control and employ methods that are as vicious as those of the goons that they take their anger out on. I won’t deny that a few shots are pretty damn cool (Gyllenhaal doing push-ups under neon lights) and Anna Kendrick smiles delightfully (the screenwriter didn’t give her anything else to do), but as it stands, End of Watch lacks depth, concept and any aesthetic quality. 70% (05/11/2012)

As in the past many times, I will be a rebel in this case as well and I will give End of Watch an unflattering report card. The fashion of films shot with a shaky handheld camera in a pseudo-documentary style has never appealed to me and in many cases, it just feels plain wrong. I could count on the fingers of one hand when a similar style used in a film had a legitimate reason. While the camera on a policeman could still be clumsily justified, on the criminal's side it looks like a failed joke and it's simply absurd. The macho behavior of the policemen is not sympathetic to me, the glorification of their work is obvious, and the pathos is at times unbearable. Although the film mentions that many policemen never fire a shot outside of training, both protagonists are busier than a frontline soldier during an offensive. The result is remarkably reminiscent of a failed reality show on an American commercial station. Overall impression: 25%. (26/01/2016)