You have a soft spot for fast-paced and brutal genre films? Then you shouldn’t miss “End Of Watch” starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena. Now in the subscription of Amazon Prime Video.
Certainly, the films of David Ayer (“Suicide Squad”) can’t exactly be classified as masterpieces, however, his direction is always distinguished by plenty of grimness and pace. “Street Kings” and “Sabotage”, for example, don’t want to be fine art, but brutal adult entertainment that nevertheless draws attention to the structural corruption within the US criminal justice system.
This also applies to “End Of Watch”, which you can watch starting today without additional costs in the Amazon Prime Video subscription. David Ayer once again relies on pure adrenaline cinema, which hardly gives its viewers time to catch their breath. In addition, the film not only has a strong cast, but also the found footage style, which is mainly used in horror cinema, transferred to a cop thriller.
THIS IS WHAT “END OF WATCH” IS ABOUT
Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) and Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) are patrol officers in Los Angeles. They have been on duty together for years and have become best friends. Zavala has just become a father, while Taylor and his girlfriend (Anna Kendrick) are planning to start a family of their own. For months, he has been filming his daily work routine with a small camcorder so that he can later show his offspring what he has experienced.
But then, during what seems at first glance to be a completely normal assignment, a catastrophe almost occurs: The police officers stop a car and one of the occupants pulls out a gun and shoots at them. They are able to subdue the men and find a number of weapons studded with diamonds. As it turns out later, this is just the beginning of a hot lead. More and more they get on the trail of a criminal cartel…
A LOT OF STEAM ON THE KETTLE!
The official FILMSTARTS review gave “End Of Watch” a good 3.5 out of 5 stars. The conclusion of our author Carsten Baumgardt is as follows: “With the radically unspectacular, mockumentary-style cop drama ‘End Of Watch’, director David Ayer succeeds in creating a raw, unglamorous character study about the hard life and survival of two ordinary cops on the streets of South Central Los Angeles: realistic, bitter and yet also a bit hopeful. “
The word “unspectacular” should not be misunderstood in this case. Because even if “End Of Watch” moves along familiar paths in terms of content and the found-footage aesthetic has not been able to lure anyone out from behind the stove since the early 2000s, the cop thriller is still one thing: gripping from beginning to end. Only a few minutes pass before David Ayer pushes the pedal to the metal, stringing together one suspense sequence after the next.
The decision to rely on the found-footage style is not just a gimmick without added value. Quite the contrary. The pseudo-documentary approach gives “End Of Watch” an immediate urgency that draws the viewer right into the action: You are right in the middle of it, instead of just being there. Even some of the clichés are only a minor annoyance – especially when an outstanding character actor like Jake Gyllenhaal is cast in one of the leading roles.
