END OF WATCH
Grade: A
Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña star in this emotional and gripping cop drama. Written and directed by David Ayer (“Training Day,” “S.W.A.T”), “End of Watch” is in his usual crisp-talking style, but contains a more realism and depth than his other films.
Officer Brian Taylor (Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zaval (Peña), aka Zee, patrol L.A.’s volatile south side. They’re like brothers, talking about family, sex, dating and life. As they gain the attention of the audience with their comradely repartee, they just as quickly get a call and transition to a life or death situation with drugs, guns and blood-thirsty gang members, often times taking risks that, by themselves or with a different partner, they would not have taken.
Zee has been happily married to Gabby (Natalie Martinez) for many years, and is only too happy to offer his partner advice on relationships and marriage and talk about Mexican and American heritage. Brian is hesitant, but eventually he marries Janet (Anna Kendrick), and a bond is quickly formed between the two families, each knowing they’ll take care of the other if something happens.
Their life seems ideal; they’re both happy with their relationships and love their dangerous job. Brian has been documenting his police activities, much to the dismay of some officers and his sergeant, and captures the intimate police life in the LAPD.
Zee and Brian are constantly faced with dangerous situations, and sometimes handle them in their own way. Arguable, their approach is what’s necessary for cops working in the south central, but it also leads them down a path to the Mexican cartel that finds their investigations less than welcome and marks them for death.
The entire movie keeps you on edge; the conversations between Zee and Brian in the cop car intertwine with their various and intense police activity. We know a big showdown between good and evil is coming and dread for the outcome. The film ends on a note reminding us why it all happened, but also hinting that maybe it was worth it.
“End of Watch” is a cop movie to compare all other cop movies to. The hand-held camera technique is jolting at first, but the up-close intimacy lent to the realistic and gritty portrayal of the story. This turned out to be one of the best aspects of the film. Gyllenhall and Zaval have good chemistry and make you realize you’re not just watching a “cop” movie, but a complex character drama set in real-life.
LOOPER
Grade: A
What do you get when you mix a dystopian future with mob-style time travel, Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Rian Johnson tries to answer that question with “Looper,” his take on the previously abused time travel genre.
In 2044 there is an occupation called looping where you serve as a hit man of sorts. Yet, looper’s are not the typical assassin since their targets are people who are sent back in time 30 years by the mob so the looper’s can quickly dispose of the victim using a futuristic shotgun.
Levitt plays Joe, a well to do looper who lives the highlife in the city with drugs, women and money while everyone outside the mob circle looks to be in destitute condition. Joe has a plan though. He knows he can’t be a looper forever. There’s a steep price to pay for his stylistic and ideal lifestyle and the bad news is that all looper’s have a time limit, eventually they must “close their loop,” and eliminate their future selves when they’re sent back as one of the targets, leaving them only 30 more years to live.
So, Joe’s plan is to save half of his money from the hit-jobs so he can move away and enjoy the last 30 years of his life. All his plans come into question, and the story in “Looper” really comes to life, when Joe is faced with the challenge of closing his loop, or having to kill off his future self (played by Willis). Joe recognizes his older self when he’s sent back and he hesitates long enough for him to escape, therefore making Joe and his escaped future-self fugitives, running from the mob.
When Joe learns that the ominous figure “the Rainmaker” is annihilating all the looper’s in the future, he and his future self go on the hunt to find the presently young Rainmaker. All the while, Joe is being pursued by the mob’s assassins headed by mob boss Abe (Jeff Daniels). Joe and future Joe have different motivations for finding the Rainmaker, yet they fail to see the bigger picture while on their specific missions. The most touching scenes involve the relationship between Joe, Sara (Emily Blunt), an independent farm owner he meets and Sara’s intelligent young son (Pierce Gagnon) as they traverse important questions on love, nurture and time travel.
What happens if you changed the future? Would it make a difference? With so many layers, most time travel movies end with an unsatisfying and jumbled ending, “Looper” is much more clever than that, though, and did not end with too many “what if?” questions. It stated its perspective and “closed the loop,” giving a satisfying and deliberate conclusion.
