It seems like forever since I watched a movie. I had Lust, Caution out from Netflix for six weeks, and even then it took me three nights to watch it. So it had to be just the right movie to ease back into the practice of watching in preparation for the summer blockbuster season. Nothing that forces me to re-live the trauma of an aging relative, or worse, sit across the aisle from some dickhead in a plastic Iron Man costume. Thank goodness for Keanu Reeves. If you can get past the utter stupidity of the plot, Street Kings delivers solid B-movie entertainment. Keanu is a gung-ho cop with the LAPD who cuts corners to catch his suspects, and is as happy blowing them away as taking them in for questioning. Forest Whitaker has lots of fun playing his superior who runs this elite, corrupt Vice unit. We even get Hugh Laurie as the witty internal affairs guy with the phony American accent he has honed on House. The corruption and betrayal become more and more intricate, but it’s best to ignore it all and concentrate on the gun fights. Lots of them. Keanu is even referred to as “the gunslinger†on a couple of occasions. But here he is in his element, the best since Speed when Dennis Hopper wisely advised him not to think too much. Occasionally Keanu begins to look pensive, as when trying to figure out the web of intrigue, but these brief moments of painful acting are soon relieved with a spray of bullets. Fun.
a new category: favorite Keanu Reeves movie.
I have a soft spot for Point Break which is a great cartoonish crime/existential thriller about surfers/bankrobbers–its secret seems to be that it never attempts to camp up its ridiculous plot.
keanu is shockingly good in the gift as a wife-beating redneck. he’s also pretty good in constantine as a world-weary exorcist and negotiator between heaven and hell.
but i do like keanu when he’s all blank as well. i can’t imagine anyone else in the first matrix movie. (the second and third instalments i like to imagine didn’t happen.)
He was funny but not forced as the new age dentist in Thumbsucker. I agree with Arnab on The Gift and the first Matrix flick. Also fun in the Bill and Ted films, but I particularly remember his work in River’s Edge as the morally conflicted teen. He also had some nice moments in Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons and Ron Howard’s Parenthood.
Best movie reference to Keanu Reeves in ‘Point Break’: Danny Butterman in ‘Hot Fuzz’ asking Nicholas Angel if he has ever shot a gun straight into the air and then, after a drunken evening at the pub, watching the scene in ‘Point Break’ where Reeves can’t bring himself to shoot Patrick Swayze.
I still think ‘Speed’ is the gold standard for Keanu: a simple, effective action movie, and I fell in love with Sandra Bullock.