Edison Force
If Edison, the city in whichEdison Forcetakes place, is equivalent to Batman’s Gotham City, then Batman, in this action drama, is Justin Timberlake. Pollack (Timberlake) is a naïve young news reporter who clumsily discovers, and eventually exposes, complete corruption within the F.R.A.T. division of Edison’s police department. F.R.A.T. recruits are unmarried men with a history of violence, contracted out as bounty hunters to halt rampant murder, drug dealing, and prostitution on the streets. As two of their main men, Lazerov (Dylan McDermott) and Deed (LL Cool J) kill several innocent people while on duty, Pollack begins digging for evidence to bust them. Inept, Pollack enlists help from seasoned journalists Moses Ashford (Morgan Freeman) and Lee Wallace (Kevin Spacey), who do help Pollack crack the case, but not without warning Pollack against the perils of devoting one’s life to exposing fraudulent behavior. True journalists, inEdison Force, are superheroes. Though it’s difficult not to envision Timberlake as the pop star he is, it is always a pleasure to see the handsome LL Cool J in a uniform and wielding guns. The most convincing actor inEdison Forceis Kevin Spacey, whose hard-boiled acting imbues his part with aMean Streetsquality. Action-packed, this film deserves mention in the history of cop films, though in terms of style, it has nothing on great film noir.--Trinie Dalton