End of Watch - Film Review

  TheBloodyCritique’s ‘End of Watch’ Film Review  

‘Once upon a time in South Central’, End of Watch stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as Brian Taylor and Miguel Zavala, close friends and partners in the LAPD. Taylor and Zavala patrol the ghetto neighbourhoods in Los Angeles, following up distress calls and generally fighting crime where they find it. Much of the film is told through the recordings of Taylor who brings his camera with him on patrols to document their encounters. They’re very much portrayed enjoying what they do and having a good time in each other’s company, they believe in their job, they believe they’re fighting a good cause and they’re not afraid to get their hands a little dirty. Outside work Miguel is married to his childhood sweetheart with a baby on the way and Taylor pines for a long term relationship with someone he loves and respects. The film follows Taylor and Zavala as they stumble into a more sinister criminal underworld than they’re used to, it opens with Jake Gyllenhaal giving a glorified speech about being a police offer and how the police force is a brotherhood, they care for and look out for each other, he also tells us he’s a regular person like everyone else, ‘behind my badge is a heart like yours’.

End of Watch is directed by David Ayer who wrote the scripts for Training Day and The Fast and the Furious (the first one!) and wrote and directed Fury which was a fantastic film and Suicide Squad which was a terrible mess, although I believe he blamed the films failure on the bigwigs at the studio which doesn’t surprise me, their dirty fingers have rendered so many pies inedible, luckily, End of Watch being a film with a much smaller budget, that isn’t the case here. It’s not quite a found footage film but a large portion of it is told through the lens of Taylor’s camera which allows the characters to talk to the audience directly, it feels very personal. I thought End of Watch was very well written, you get a sense of the characters and their relationship feels genuine, both lead characters deliver excellent performances and I believed them. When the film starts for the first half an hour I thought they were a bit meat headed but as the film progresses their characters are explored in more depth and after a very commendable act on both parts I started to enjoy their company, I’m not a fan of the police in general, but these two characters are portrayed as regular guys making them more approachable and relatable for the audience. 

Like I say, it’s not quite a found footage film but that’s certainly a big part of it and it works, I don’t think I questioned these events being filmed at all as is usually the case with found footage films, they deal with it fairly early on showing Taylor attaching a small camera to his jacket, although he does use a regular camcorder at times as well. End of Watch is paced perfectly with the characters being developed and explored very well, between their personal lives and their lives as police officers we get a very good sense of who they are, their values and their opinions and the performances of both Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena are excellent, I thought they had a great chemistry and worked very well together, I believed their friendship and enjoyed the bromance they shared, there was a lot of bromance going on! As the film gets deeper into the story it starts to get gripping, there’s a sense of realism which gives it this feeling of looming danger and it’s very tense. The supporting performances are all great as well, Anna Kendrick does a good job as Taylor’s love interest but the only characters that really matter are Taylor and Zavala.   

In conclusion I’d definitely recommend End of Watch; it’s a fun ride with great characters and a tense story that grips you! They don’t glorify the police which I appreciated, the characters certainly believe in their jobs but the film feels like it has enough self-awareness to be impartial. The characters on the criminal side of things feel a little stereotypical and empty but it didn’t bother me too much, like I say, the only characters that matter are Taylor and Zavala. I enjoyed End of Watch quite a bit and I’d give it 7.5/10. 

What did you think of End of Watch?