Ridiculously Overrated

Rating: 4/10 (23 May 2018)

This movie suffers from an overly convoluted and unfocused plot (going after one group of criminals then the big cliche crime boss the next. Having multiple antagonists is fine, but the problem was it felt like two different stories that were weakly connected), characters that would like us to believe they are much more complex than the are (the white knight cop, Bud, who turns out to be a hypocrite. Some might take this cotradiction as character complexity, but the flaws of this character are never acknowledged in the form of facing consequences for you actions, bc in the end he gets the girl), and failure to address the theme of police corruption that it presents (Again, Bud is a thug of a cop, a dispicable person who is only ever rewarded by the film. Lieutenant Exley supposedly represents a moral reformer in the LAPD, but in the end he doesn't significantly change anything or really openly challenge the corrupt LAPD besides at the beginning when he testifies against a fellow cop for their violation of practice. He is also an unsavory person whose moral hypocrisy is never acknowledged). This isn't even to mention the cringey ass dialogue that is trying to hard to sound 1950s and the fact that the only black people in this film are criminals and rapists, and that things seemed to be easily achieved by all the "protagonists" with minimal effort put forth.