Crown Vic (film)
Crown Vic is a 2019 American action film directed by Joel Souza and starring Luke Kleintank, Thomas Jane, Bridget Moynahan, David Krumholtz, Scottie Thompson, and Josh Hopkins. The film premiered on April 26, 2019, in the Tribeca Film Festival and was released to theatres on November 8, 2019, in the United States. The film focuses on the events during a night shift for veteran LAPD officer Ray Mandel and his trainee Nick Holland. The film got its title from the Ford Crown Victoria, a car widely used by police, in which Ray and Nick patrol Los Angeles . Critics noted substantial similarities between "Crown Vic" and the 2001 film "Training Day". Plot. Nick Holland is a newly minted officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. In his first night shift, he is assigned to patrol the city with experienced policeman Ray Mandel. Ray and Nick are completely different personalities; while Nick is a down-to-earth, self-proclaimed world improver, Ray is a divorced pessimist with a penchant for breaking the rules and resorting to violence. In their shift, they are responsible for all kinds of incidents, from robberies to domestic unrest to car fires. They also try  to find a girl who has been kidnapped by a group of drug traffickers, and at the same time, they chase two terroristic bank robbers wanted for murdering policemen. Development. Despite being set in Los Angeles, the movie was filmed in Buffalo, New York. Release. The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26, 2019. It was released in theaters on November 8, 2019, and on VOD by Screen Media on January 7, 2020. Reception. Box office. "Crown Vic" grossed $3,868 in one opening theatre in North America against a production budget of $ 3.6 million. Critical response. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads, "Led by a solid turn from the well-cast Thomas Jane, "Crown Vic" gets an impressive amount of mileage out of its familiar cop thriller framework." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 47 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Glenn Kenny of RogerEbert.com awarded the film 1.5 stars out of four, commenting, "Aside from a rock-solid performance by Thomas  Jane as the grizzled cop, "Crown Vic", which is named after the Ford model car that is the default of the LAPD black-and-white, has very little to offer the discriminating moviegoer." "Movie Nation"'s Roger Moore gave the film two stars out of four, stating ""Crown Vic" is a grounded and gritty cops-on-the-night-shift melodrama built around a tightly coiled turn by Thomas Jane... "Crown Vic" isn’t a bad picture. It’s just too unexceptional to stand out." Rex Reed of "Observer Media" gave the film two stars out of four and said, "I  never cease to wonder how some films manage to borrow, imitate, copy, or steal from older films without acknowledging or crediting the originals. A predictable, ho-hum police procedural called "Crown Vic", about one night of violence and death with a veteran Los Angeles cop assigned to escort a rookie cop through the criminal underground while teaching him the ropes, is so close to the 2001 "Training Day" that it’s practically a remake." Dennis Harvey of "Variety" noted, "That’s a lot of narrative content, and "Crown Vic" varies in involvement and credibility as it juggles the more melodramatic  aspects with the quasi-"vérité" ones. Still, it all works more often than not, thanks to the able lead performances and Souza’s generally smooth handling." Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" stated, "The filmmaker displays a genuine flair for staging exciting action sequences, and the ever-reliable Jane delivers a solid lead performance, here tempering his natural machismo with a sympathetic, mournful quality. But there's just too much about "Crown Vic" that we haven't seen a thousand times before, to more impactful effect."