End of Watch: South Central LA is no place for heroes

The young adrenaline-junkie LAPD officers in End of Watch are as fool-hardy as they are unlucky. The partners are put on a new beat in South Central Los Angeles after being cleared of a shooting. While on the lookout for guns, money and drugs, they stumble upon a Mexican drug cartel operating in the US. Although the duo doesn’t necessarily mean to pursue these violent and powerful drug lords, their passion for the job and underlying desire for approval from their peers accidently leads them to cross paths with the cartel on several occasions, including finding a house filled with dismembered bodies during a routine call to check in a senior citizen. Ultimately, the leadership south of the border determines the cops are too much of a nuisance and puts out a hit on the heroes.

The movie is as much about danger, heroics and action as it is about the routine, downtime and relationships. Much of the film is everyday banter between officers Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Zavala (Michael Peña) on patrol or inter-department ribbing at the station and on the street. It’s a bit like Cops if those guys ever did or said anything interesting . . . or Pulp Fiction if Vincent and Jules had been good guys . . . or Reno 911 if those dimwits ever stopped talking to fight crime. But we digress. Built largely around a “found footage” effect, it gets a little ridiculous when we see night surveillance footage of Mexican drug lords standing near livestock to demonstrate just how “rural” and distant they are from the cruelty taking place on the LA streets.

We learn a lot about Taylor, Zavala and their world. And, in witnessing and understanding the depth of their friendship, we develop an empathy that puts us even more on edge when the partners are put in threatening positions. In our book, that makes it a gritty cop movie with heart.