End of Watch

Sure, I could complain here about the camera and the sobriety with which this movie is made. However, I knew what I was getting into, and most importantly, there is still a high number of actors which I was really looking forward to. And so I started watching End of Watch, and lo and behold, it’s actually a beautiful and honest movie portraying the demanding work of police officers in Los Angeles, who fight drug cartels every day. It’s a kind of a peek into this world, plus it’s incredibly human, natural, and beautifully non-affected. I have to admit, I don’t do this every day, but I simply ignored the flaws of the camera in this movie. While at the beginning it wasn’t exactly a hit, the premise, the filmmaking craft and the actors made me praise it in the end. End of Watch may not be a film for everyone but giving it a chance is worth it. Maybe it can also surprise other people like me, who can’t stand shaky cameras. (05/09/2014)

At first what seems like a pure spectacle of reality, then a sinister psychological thriller in the guise of an action flick, and at last an overwhelmingly escalating drama of people doing hard work in an unbearable place. During the operations and the necessity to draw a weapon, you can truly feel every breath and drop of sweat, and thanks to Jake Gyllenhaal's sincere gaze, End of Watch will stay with me for a long time. The reason it didn't make the highest rating is precisely because of its main asset – realism. In its authentic filth, David Ayer's romp cut a little too close for me to simply see it as a "mere" spectator experience. (02/14/2014)

As in the past many times, I will be a rebel in this case as well and I will give End of Watch an unflattering report card. The fashion of films shot with a shaky handheld camera in a pseudo-documentary style has never appealed to me and in many cases, it just feels plain wrong. I could count on the fingers of one hand when a similar style used in a film had a legitimate reason. While the camera on a policeman could still be clumsily justified, on the criminal's side it looks like a failed joke and it's simply absurd. The macho behavior of the policemen is not sympathetic to me, the glorification of their work is obvious, and the pathos is at times unbearable. Although the film mentions that many policemen never fire a shot outside of training, both protagonists are busier than a frontline soldier during an offensive. The result is remarkably reminiscent of a failed reality show on an American commercial station. Overall impression: 25%. (01/26/2016)

A film that switches between a POV perspective and "classic" hand-held filming, between passion / police sentiment and a distant monitoring of strange guys for whom the service is an adrenaline ride (and it significantly affects them). The action scenes are brilliant and I must admit that I haven't felt such intense tension for a long time (Elite Squad?) - the combination of personal perspective and raw digital camera works great. As well as the everyday dialogues of both protagonists full of LA dialect and mundaneness. It is worse in terms of the attempts to look into privacy, in which the POV is a bit un-conceptual and disruptive, often as if it should rather obscure quite banal phrases. At the same time, End of Watch has no trouble dropping this sentiment several times. Unfortunately, the lavage between irony and fascination is mostly felt at the end, which is heading toward big things, but in the end it repeats semi-pathetically that which even a blind person could not miss... I give it what I give it for the great Gyllenhaal, the "unresolved" motif of guilt and a few great moments (the final shoot-out, the scene with a search of the house of the "old woman"). P.S. It would be interesting to compare "filming methods" in relation to Stone's thematically related film Savages! (11/05/2012)

It’s evident that the people behind this film are knowledgeable in police work, as the whole thing appears unusually authentic, and they also have a sense of capturing the rawness of the contemporary world, or rather, crime in the USA. Aside from the blurred digital camera and the "live shooting," which in itself is authentically just around the corner, the harshness with which they depict seemingly ordinary days in a police department is unbelievable and unexpected. The desired catharsis arrives just right, without unnecessary sentimentality and pathos. It’s a concise and fast-paced film that knows exactly what it wants to say and how. It is not suitable for the faint-hearted, expect something that is not like a typical film, but rather an animalistic thing. (09/08/2013)