End of watch

[Wendell]

Shot documentary-style, this film follows the daily grind of two young police officers in LA who are partners and friends, and what happens when they meet criminal forces greater than themselves.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1855199/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1>

The film was directed by David Ayer (Training Day, Street Kings), who insisted that Gyllenhaal and Pena go on numerous ridealongs with actual LAPD officers.
<http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/End_of_Watch>

Until you've seen the movie, don't watch the trailers; there are scene spoilers in almost every one.

If you insist on watching a trailer first, watch this one: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPXPIAYO_Jo> (It's only nineteen seconds and it doesn't reveal much.)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPXPIAYO_Jo

[Wendell]

'End of Watch' Based On LAPD Cop's Patrol Duty
<http://www.policemag.com/blog/editors-notes/story/2012/09/director-end-of-watch-is-story-of-honest-lapd-cops.aspx>

LAPD Held Not Liable for Police Officer’s Suicide After Affair
<http://www.metnews.com/articles/badg082202.htm>

[F-Trooper05]

Not a bad flick. The story line itself was sort of 'blah,' but you could definitely tell that they had a lot of on-set LEO advisers making sure the comms lingo and TTP's were at least half-ass believable. I must say though, seeing the stock plastic sights on all of the Gocks drove me nuts (the X300's were a nice touch though).

[SGT_Calle]

I watched it last night and really enjoyed it.

[Byron]

I had mixed feelings on the whole thing.

As far as technical advisors, they got off on a pretty crappy start when just a few seconds into the film, the protagonist holds up a knife to the camera and proclaims "this is a Spyderco tactical knife." It wasn't. Not even close. Seemed weird to make such a big show of something like that, then get it wrong.

Anyway, putting all that aside (because I don't really care anyway), I thought it was an OK movie.

As a guy who likes to play with cameras, the film just violated the fourth wall way too much for my taste. Not that they ever did it purposefully; rather, the whole schtick was that the protagonist was making a project for film class, and we're supposed to see all the footage as if it's been shot on his assortment of a cameras (he has them all over the car, on the officers, etc). The problem is that they constantly switched back-and-forth between shots that could have actually been done that way, and shots that would require a dedicated camera man.

One example off the top of my head: girl is talking to camera she is holding, then puts it on the dresser, facing the bed. She then climbs into bed with her man. For a moment the composition stays accurate to the dresser camera, then all of a sudden we're looking at them from a new camera angle: one that is floating next to the bed and actually moves around to get better angles on them.

If the film had switched between these two in a more artistic way, I would have been able to stomach it. For example, they could have kept all the first-person footage (and car footage) looking like it was shot on home video, then transitioned to a more professional look for the wider shots. Instead, they used the same camcorder feel (frame rate, rolling shutter, etc) for wide shots that absolutely could not have been shot by the protagonist's gear.

I know that this isn't an issue that will bother many people, but it made it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief and immerse myself in the film.

As for the plot, the whole time it felt like it was building to something much larger than it ultimately did. Many of the build-ups throughout the film just seemed to fizzle out.

This really isn't a movie to watch for the plot though, but rather for the camaraderie between two partners.

[LittleLebowski]

Felt like Top Gun for cops. Enjoyable but predictable.

[Zhurdan]

I thought it was a good movie. Pretty intense moments, good action, funny banter. My wife, on the other hand, did not care for some of the more gruesome scenes.