At the film’s heart is a buddy cop duo worthy of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Jake Gyllenhaal (“Source Code”) and Michael Peña (“Tower Heist”) are LAPD officers Brian Taylor and Mike Zavala, partners in crime-stopping and best of friends. In the past, Ayer’s focus has been on dirty cops, the kind more interested in stuffing their wallets than serving and protecting. His focus is shifted in “End of Watch:" Taylor and Zavala, smart and courageous, are good cops, though they may occasionally bend the rules to make certain that arrests are made and justice is served.
They operate in a particularly nasty district of South Central, where, according to Taylor, cops are forced to pull out their guns more on just half a shift than most cops do their entire careers. For much of the film, we follow Taylor and Zavala as they are on watch, observing the area from their patrol car, responding to call-outs and pursuing suspects. Often, we sit in the vehicle with them, listening to their conversations, which proves just as enthralling as the blood-pumping action.
Our POV is frequently that of a video diary filmed by Taylor for a documentary of sorts, placing “End of Watch” in the presently popular found footage genre. Cameras are set up on the dashboard of the patrol car while Taylor and Zavala strap mini-cams to the pockets of their shirts. Sometimes, Taylor films crime scenes with an HD camcorder, much to the annoyance of his camera-shy co-workers. Presumably for logical reasons, many scenes are shot partly in a traditional style, which retains the same raggedy, frenetic quality that comes so naturally to the found footage format.
The plot is loose and only springs into action during the third act, though there is much build up to its outcome. A fatal drive-by ordered by notorious Latino gang leader Big Evil (a terrifying Maurice Compte) intensifies a feud between the local black gang and the overtaking Mexican cartels. Smelling something fishy, Taylor and Zavala secretly embark on an investigation above their pay grade, soon uncovering an illegal operation involving drug smuggling, human trafficking and bloody massacres. Their persistent tampering with the cartel’s business leads to a target being painted on their foreheads, and Big Evil is looking to collect.
Gyllenhaal and Peña share the kind of brotherly chemistry that can only have been an accident; one senses that their characters have been close friends since time immemorial. What’s most startling about “End of Watch” is how well, and how quickly, we get to know Taylor and Zavala through just the conversations they have on their beat: as they trade advice, stories and insults, we learn of their home lives, of their personal preferences, of their past and what they wish for in the future. We know everything about them, and yet they still surprise us, as in one especially harrowing scene in which they selflessly run into a burning building together not once but twice to save two children trapped inside.
They are supported by a strong cast. Frank Grillo (“The Grey") is the grizzled police captain who warms to Taylor and Zavala once they start getting results; David Harbour (“The Newsroom") is hard-nosed veteran cop Van Hauser; and America Ferrera, almost unrecognisable from her days as “Ugly Betty," is tough cop Orozco. Playing Taylor’s new squeeze, bright college student Janet, is the reliably radiant Anna Kendrick (“Scott Pilgrim vs the World”), and playing Zavala’s long-time wife and high school sweetheart, Gabby, is Natalie Martinez (“Death Race”), who gets a great scene in which she, using wildly imaginative hand gestures, giddily shows Janet the many ways of pleasuring Taylor once he gets home from patrolling the streets.
The jittery, handheld filming style, which is always up close and personal, lends both intimacy and grit to the proceedings. However, it can also be problematic: when it is revealed that the gangbanging badguys are also filming their every move (“Get that fuckin’ camera out of my face!” is often uttered), the found footage format seems contrived, and whenever the film is shot in a traditional method, one can’t help but wonder what the point of the found footage aspect was. But you can’t deny the immersive atmosphere and raw, authentic edge wielded by this grimy, guerilla aesthetic.
Humour is an important element in “End of Watch,” and the film is indeed very funny when it wants to be. Taylor and Zavala’s merciless banter is sure to raise a smile, as are their goofy pranks back at headquarters. But there’s thematic resonance to the more comedic moments of what is an otherwise grimly violent police procedural: as Taylor and Zavala sit in their patrol car, waiting with tense uncertainty to find out what horror they will next encounter, it is humour that keeps them calm and keeps them sane. It is here that “End of Watch" provides real insight into the lives of these boys in blue: for the LAPD, the job is tough and often haunting, and it seems laughter is the best medicine.
Considering the perilous dangers Officers Taylor and Zavala are seen to face on such a regular basis, “End of Watch” isn’t likely to persuade many to join the force. But it will give many a newfound respect for both the institution and the guys on the streets risking their lives every day in a quest to protect the peace. This is a gripping, scarily plausible portrayal of how life is for those who enforce the law and ultimately how they deal with the unexpected, and the expected too.
8/10
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