Well, this movie is being original with its approach and everything but
I just wasn't all that taken by it.
It might seem to you that this is just another one of those 'found footage' movies, in which everything is getting told and shown from the perspective of the person handling the camera. But for your information, or perhaps also your comfort, it's only being partly a found footage movie. It often shows things from the perspective of its main characters but it also often steps outside of it and becomes a more common movie with its camera-work and storytelling. Normally this is something that doesn't work out too well. You either do one approach or the other but when mixing them together, the movie its style and way of storytelling sorts of start to fall flat. It however worked out well for this movie though, probably because the movie never goes overboard with either approach and actually uses the two approaches to strengthen each other.
This definitely is being a movie that's picking a more realistic approach to things. Everything (well, almost everything) that happens in the movie feels realistic, in the sense that it truly could happen all to real life cops. It's also not being standard and clichéd with all of its situations. The situations the two police men get called out to are often nothing spectacular, fun or rewarding. I liked that the movie did this, since this definitely must be what a normal average day of a cop on patrol must be like.
Thing I however didn't liked very much was that it was also focusing on the the more private and personal lives of the two main characters. I'm sorry to say, it just wasn't being all that interesting for me. It would most definitely had been enough to keep things focused on its two main characters and perhaps let them only mention stuff about their privates lives, from time to time. It slowed things down and gave the movie too many distractions, that it just didn't needed to have in it. I actually was mostly bored during the movie its entire middle part, in which nothing too interesting ever happened, at least not for me.
Luckily the movie still heavily relies on its two main characters and their chemistry together, which is very noticeably present. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña are very convincing as partners, as if they were already riding the patrol car for years together.
This is really being original movie in more than one way but foremost really with its approach and storytelling. Yes, original but that doesn't mean it all was being something positive. I for instance didn't really liked it that the movie wasn't really having a clear main story in it. I would had most likely preferred it if the movie more often sticked to its main story, so the movie also would have a clear beginning, middle and end in it. Now instead the movie just feels a tad bit too much like its hanging together from a bunch of loose sequences.
So really, I could appreciate this movie for a whole bunch of stuff it did but on the other hand, it wasn't really a movie I enjoyed watching all throughout and also just got too little else out of it.
6/10
It might seem to you that this is just another one of those 'found footage' movies, in which everything is getting told and shown from the perspective of the person handling the camera. But for your information, or perhaps also your comfort, it's only being partly a found footage movie. It often shows things from the perspective of its main characters but it also often steps outside of it and becomes a more common movie with its camera-work and storytelling. Normally this is something that doesn't work out too well. You either do one approach or the other but when mixing them together, the movie its style and way of storytelling sorts of start to fall flat. It however worked out well for this movie though, probably because the movie never goes overboard with either approach and actually uses the two approaches to strengthen each other.
This definitely is being a movie that's picking a more realistic approach to things. Everything (well, almost everything) that happens in the movie feels realistic, in the sense that it truly could happen all to real life cops. It's also not being standard and clichéd with all of its situations. The situations the two police men get called out to are often nothing spectacular, fun or rewarding. I liked that the movie did this, since this definitely must be what a normal average day of a cop on patrol must be like.
Thing I however didn't liked very much was that it was also focusing on the the more private and personal lives of the two main characters. I'm sorry to say, it just wasn't being all that interesting for me. It would most definitely had been enough to keep things focused on its two main characters and perhaps let them only mention stuff about their privates lives, from time to time. It slowed things down and gave the movie too many distractions, that it just didn't needed to have in it. I actually was mostly bored during the movie its entire middle part, in which nothing too interesting ever happened, at least not for me.
Luckily the movie still heavily relies on its two main characters and their chemistry together, which is very noticeably present. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña are very convincing as partners, as if they were already riding the patrol car for years together.
This is really being original movie in more than one way but foremost really with its approach and storytelling. Yes, original but that doesn't mean it all was being something positive. I for instance didn't really liked it that the movie wasn't really having a clear main story in it. I would had most likely preferred it if the movie more often sticked to its main story, so the movie also would have a clear beginning, middle and end in it. Now instead the movie just feels a tad bit too much like its hanging together from a bunch of loose sequences.
So really, I could appreciate this movie for a whole bunch of stuff it did but on the other hand, it wasn't really a movie I enjoyed watching all throughout and also just got too little else out of it.
6/10
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