'End of Watch'

David Ayer is by far no stranger to cop fiction, not with the likes of Training Day and Street Kings under his belt. In End of Watch he goes about things differently though. This is no portrayal of police corruption reaching to the highest level in the force, but a depiction of two street cops and the friendship that binds them together. Officer Taylor and Officer Zavala are partners in South Central , one of the roughest neighbourhood in LA and that is saying something. They patrol these ganglands on a day-to-day basis and their experiences range from domestic disputes to finding bodies, guns and drugs. More often than not they get shot at before the day is over.

When Taylor has detective aspirations and decides to investigate beyond his duty call, things start to get out of hand as the two manage to get on the radar of the South Central's Mexican drug cartel, run by a gentleman with the very telling name 'Big Evil'.

Presumably to add to the authenticity, Ayer lets his characters shoot half the movie. Taylor, under the pretext of filming for a college application project, films most of the proceedings on their watch. The gang members film their drive-bys and some of the footage is captured by the cameras on the police officer's uniforms. As a result of this found footage aesthetics, the visuals remain shaky, unstable, often disconcerting and fragmented, mimicking the general confusion of these sometimes extreme situations the two cops find themselves in. Ayer throws the spectator in the thick of things, peeping around hallway corners, never knowing what might expect one on the other side. It's a video game gimmick, but it does work as it adds to the nerve-racking intensity of this job in which one might very well get killed. At the same time, the imagery works by contrast, the wide sun-drenched LA streets contend with the crammed, claustrophobic interiors in a set-up in which houses and homes become crime scenes. The gritty feel of the hand-held camera might not necessarily be the most original directorial choice, the visual feel of the film does however help underline the emotional background that comes with the police territory.

The first half of the film thus consists of these images captured by the characters themselves and it is only in the second act of the film that a further perspective becomes clearly noticeable and thus somewhat distracting. This third camera, neither handled by either of the cops nor by the criminals introduces questions of authorship as it is never clear who is wielding the device. It's the intrusion of an outsider to the diegetic universe which results in a spectatorial disruption and opens this closed world of extreme realism to one of fictional drama, a transgression which does not sit well. As the visuals remind of a reality TV cop shows so popular in the US of the 90's, this third camera bears reference to the presence of an outsider to the LAPD, a TV person recording events for entertainment thus putting in question the very authenticity of the latter.

These are, however, only minor hiccups which do not hinder the greater purpose of the film. If you're looking for an action-fuelled cop thriller, you won't get your money's worth with this one. End of Watch is a character study, a Bildungsroman so to speak, more interested in how the average cop thinks, feels and often justifies in order to handle this job and the constant pressure and risk-taking. These cops legitimise each other and affirm each others choices and action. Only in living this existence as police officer rather than seeing it as a mere job, can these characters make sense of the horrors they see and deeds they commit in the name of the law. It thus comes as no wonder that the characters of the wives seem to be nothing more than supporting roles in the bromance of the police partnership.

Taylor and Zavala are your quintessential 'boys will be boys' figures who spent their time between calls taking the piss out of each other and their respective ethnic backgrounds. This environment oozes Machismo no matter what the sex of either cop or gangster. The verbal 'Fuck' count goes through the roof, indeed, Fuck is used as verb, noun, adjective, substitute...it might be authentic, but most of the characters just sound incredibly stupid and the whole respect through violence goes back to a primitivism one would have hoped society as such had passed beyond. I heard the pubescent boys behind me whisper : Fuck Yeah! when Zavala beats Mr Tre up, who sees the beating as a mark of respect and thus Zavala with the soul of an original gangster. It's not the authenticity of this world I question, it's the depiction of this attitude as something to be aspired to. Sometimes the film sits within the uncomfortable likeness to a recruitment video for the LAPD. In fact it hits the tone of adolescence perfectly with its black and white virtues of honesty, honour, male friendship, the making sense of an incomprehensible world and the unquestionable integrity of the rules of the street.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena both deliver straight forward and honest performances, but where they excel is in the depiction of their friendship. The banter and conversations they hold feel incredibly natural to the point of seeming improvised. Without question these characters represent the very core of the film and neither their performance nor the character development can be faulted. All the while they present the red herring of the plot. The structure of the film tends to be categorized into episodic sequences rather than representing a homogeneous whole again tying in with the cop show concept. Ayer takes his time, there seem to be no clearly defined goals and aims to this narrative, rather the film is an observation and description, accompanying the characters for a certain amount of time before releasing them back to their lives. This, of course, never means that there are no action scenes, violence or car chases, in short any typical iconography we've come to associate with cop movies, but they are not of the first priority.

The banal day-to-day conversations in the car, the private glimpses into the lives of these cops is what makes the film well worth seeing and raises it from a mental wank for the pre-adolescent to a strong realist drama which despite of a few hiccups manages to make good on its promises.