It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a cop movie, so it was nice to visit the genre again. End of Watch is the story of two young Los Angles cops on the beat. Following them for about a year, Brian and Mike are not only partners on the force, but really good friends. Through their everyday job the stumble upon a very deep rooted and dangerous criminal organization that does not want anyone disturbing their business.

End of Watch is shot documentary style and that’s my biggest problem with it. There’s no need for it as the filmmakers didn’t stick with the idea. It’s set up so that Brian is going to school on the side and one of his electives is a film class, so he has a hand held camera and two cameras that he has pinned to the chest of himself and Mike. So that’s where most of the footage you see “comes” from. Sometimes other people have cameras too, like a gang banger sitting in the back of a car on their way to a drive by. But throughout the movie, you see camera angles that don’t fit this set up. Cameras disappear and come back, traditional steady cam shots are used in chases…it doesn’t make much sense to me. A few lines of dialog are said to explain the video camera footage, but what for? It wasn’t used and there was no benefit to it. I might be over reacting, but it stuck out to me for the entire film.

Aside from that, I thought it was a great movie. I’ve heard a lot of grandiose praise for this flick which I think is a bit much, but it’s defiantly worth a watch. I like Jake Gyllenhaal a lot and he’s got great chemistry with Michael Pena. It’s well made all around, the banter between the two leads is fun even if there are a few dips into douchey bro cop territory.

Good times, I recommend it.