Street Kings is a movie about bad cops. Really, it doesn't get a whole lot more complicated than that. Within five minutes of the movie's opening, you know that the cops we will be dealing with don't exactly care about following the book when it comes to getting the bad guys. Within ten, you see that when they get the bad guys, they'd prefer to just finish things up right then and there rather than involve any other part of the justice system. And within fifteen, you know that most of the cops who will do anything to get the bad guys will also do anything to protect themselves as well as those who stand by their side.

Call it an admirable pursuit of justice. Look at it as a sense of loyalty and camaraderie that would be a positive addition to of any of our lives. But when Detective Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) finds himself entangled in the death of his former partner Detective Washington (Terry Crews) and his current squad members quickly rally around him to keep him out of trouble, you know that somehow the justice and loyalty at play isn't quite right. When Ludlow refuses to let Detective Washington's killers go and everyone around him keeps telling him to close the book already, you sense that the dirty dealings of L.A.'s finest may very well go far beyond using any method to get the bad guys. And as Ludlow's pursuit of justice calls into question more of the men around him and brings him closer and closer to joining Detective Washington, we see that justice can in fact go too far and that a favor passed between friends isn't even close to loyalty when it comes at a very real and always remembered price.

The problem is that at least one if not many of the cops in Street Kings have a serious God complex. They believe that they are deserving of power, they think that that power gives them the right to judge, control, and even kill anyone who they deem to be in any way problematic to their "kingdom," and they trust that their power immediately makes every action they take allowable and even necessary as a part of a greater good.

To a certain extent, we see that in Ludlow when he takes down a house full of Korean criminals who haven't even fired a single shot at him. As he heads on his quest for justice, his justice-by-death philosophy does beg the question of whether more death actually rights the first. As Detective Washington's widow tells him, "Blood doesn't wash away blood." And to some extent, much of the movie, and even its end, does make you wonder if Ludlow's actions really do take justice to a point that is better than before.

But even as Detective Ludlow kills more people than anyone else in pursuit of the justice he seeks, we also come face to face with the men of power who he brings down. The man who taught Ludlow all he knows and a man calls himself "the king," Captain Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker) is at the center of it all from the very beginning. Unless you have any overly optimistic belief in the good of humanity, you know that he is dirty from the moment he walks on screen. The only question is, how much? And as the movie unfolds, that is what we find out.

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