When I say this film is "documentary style", I literally mean just that. Think of the many documentaries you may have seen and notice how they all sort of have that similar gritty look. The camera moves are shaky and unpolished. Lighting is often harsh and blown out in bright areas and overly dark in...well, dark areas. This is the case for End of Watch. All of the camera moves and angles are from purposeful cameras, meaning, cameras we see and are aware of. Usually, these angles are from a camera Gyllenhaal's character carries around with himself (he's taking some film production class for school, so he is documenting his career). There are other cameras attached to the pocket of both Gyllenhaal and Pena, which gives the viewer an almost "fish eye" view of whats in front of these two men, and we wouldn't want to forget the dashboard cameras mounted on all police vehicles are also used in End of Watch. This film definitely has a "COPS" feel to it, lots of chasing and ducking camera angles, and none of them are pretty.
While these unique angles allow for the viewer to feel apart of the action, I feel they also distract from the overall story. When the camera is bouncing all over the place, it's difficult for our eye to follow any one specific point on the screen, thus causing what I feel is "visual overload". Think back to the film, Bourne Supremacy. There is a scene where Matt Damon is fighting that guy dressed similarly to himself. In that scene the use of "shaky cam" caused the fight to become one big blur of who's who and what's happening till it ultimately ended and we see that Damon is victorious. How did he win? I'm not 100% sure. This "technique" makes it difficult for the viewer to fully grasp what is going on. While watching End of Watch, I did not feel this camera technique was too over the top, it aided in realism, my problem with the "realism" was story based.
These two officers seemed to always be in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time. What I mean by this is that typically a police officer will never have to draw their weapon throughout their career, however, in End of Watch Gyllenhaal and Pena draw their weapons multiple times, now I know that South Central L.A. and East L.A. aren't exactly Key West or Dallas, but I find it hard to believe their encounters. *I'm no cop by any means, but I was under the impression that if/when a police officer had to draw their weapon in the line of duty and fire said weapon, they then went on paid leave while the department investigated the incident. This leaves them to take counseling on the matter; maybe my thoughts on this are incorrect, I digress.* All I'm saying is that literally during this films course, these two cops got into multiple firefights, rescue children from a burning building, got mixed up with Mexican Drug cartel members, etc. Look this didn't all take place within a month, I'm actually not sure what the time duration was but I assume it was over a year or two, nothing too much longer I'm sure. This plot problem is awkward to me; on one hand we don't want to see a movie where cops are writing tickets, but that doesn't mean watching this glamorous romanticized story won't sit weird; basically a film trying to seem realistic comes off as Miami Vice or Bad Boys, overly active glamorous police work. So all in all I feel that story aspect takes away from the unique/realistic feel of the film. Food for thought, I'm being a little harsh.
Final Words: Medium Popcorn.
All in all End of Watch was interesting at best, but a little too far fetched and graphic for the most part. If you want a fast paced anxious film to watch, this will most likely not disappoint, but if you want something "lighter" I would pass.
Until next time, happy viewing!
Review Rating : Based on popcorn sizes; small, medium, large, extra-large
When films get a snore zzz... worth skipping
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