Slant Magazine April 6, 2008 Surely two decades of TV’s post-Bochco dirty-cop dramas have removed this kind of potboiler not only from claims of artiness, but from expect...
Much of the casting is dead-on, from Cedric the Entertainer as a street dealer to Jay Mohr as a slimy cop and Chris Evans as an earnest rookie...
Depressing and sickeningly violent.
There’s something cynical about Ayers' attempt to preserve Ludlow as a hero after scene upon scene meant to show, with heavy irony, how...
Boston.com April 11, 2008 [Director] Ayer appears to like the thrill of violence more than its philosophical underpinnings, so the movie is caught between the silly and the...
Despite the predictability of the overall story arc, there’s suspense and tension to be found between the credit sequences, but the movie is...
ieweekly.com April 11, 2008 By the gripping finale, it’s clear that Street Kings is implausible in its practicalities, if not in its grand concept
RogerEbert.com April 11, 2008 An anemic attempt to evoke the big, shiny action pictures of the late '80s and early '90s, the heyday of Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, wh...
The film is mainly a showcase for shouting.
Austin Chronicle October 18, 2008 A solid contemporary crime drama.
There’s plenty of empty bravura, and Reeves is fundamentally blank and uninteresting.
James Ellroy wrote the script; he also wrote the novel on which L.A. Confidential was based. If you’re hoping for a similar intelligence...
Last-minute revelations emerge screaming from around the corner like squad cars you heard coming half-an-hour ago, and it all ends with a dull thud...
Keanu Reeves' bad-boy cop Tom Ludlow may not play by the rules, but the film sure does.
There’s a lot to appreciate in Street Kings, a tight, propulsive action thriller, but there’s one thing to marvel at, and that&rsq...
Toronto Star April 11, 2008 The movie belongs to Reeves, who at 43 is finally starting to look like an adult, with greater heft all round. He does Clint proud.
If Ellroy weren’t such a good writer of novels about the dark side of the American psyche, he’d be preposterous. Then again, perha...
detnews.com April 11, 2008 If you’ve seen Training Day, you’ve seen Street Kings done better.
David Ayer, who wrote Training Day, directs with enough flash to keep the action crisp and nasty. But he can’t swagger his way through Ellroy...
After its clichéd first scene Street Kings becomes an enjoyably tough, blood-splattered action drama that revolves around the one good cop at its c...
New York Post April 11, 2008 Like director David Ayer’s previous movies (he wrote Training Day), Street Kings is about the joy of badass coppery.
Street Kings is buoyed by the spirit of Keanu Reeves, who never fails to astound, at least this critic, by being consistently better than he&rsquo...
