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Rating:
This hard-boiled cop flick is mean, nasty, and violent, inspired as it is by the writing of James Ellroy, who penned the story it's based on. It's very much true to Ellroy's gutter-style crime fiction, and that's the film's best quality. The screenplay by David Ayer is very much in keeping with Ellroy's style, perhaps even more so than L.A. Confidential. The film also has plenty of similarities to 2001's Training Day with Denzel Washington. Both films deal with thoroughly corrupt LAPD units. Dark Blue focuses on the Special Investigations Squad (SIS), which killed an incredible amount of bank robbers over a short period of time. The unit's amazing kill rate was never a huge story and was eventually overshadowed by the Rampart Scandal. Dark Blue, like Training Day, also has a seasoned corrupt cop Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell) paired up with an anxious rookie Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman). While Russell does a fine job playing an alcoholic, out-of-control jerk and Brendan Gleeson is good as his completely crooked mentor, Speedman is weak in the good-cop role, as is his love interest, another cop (Michael Michele). Both are TV actors who make Dark Blue feel like a crummy TV cop show when they're together on screen. The story takes place as the Rodney King verdict and L.A. Riots unfold and does a good job of showing the sort of cop culture that led to those events. The riot scene near the end of Dark Blue is quite a spectacle, but the very end of the film is too staged. This doesn't take away, however, from what is surely one of the grittiest cop pictures Hollywood has ever made. Adam Bregman, All Movie Guide

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