I take my time to get around to things sometimes– this happens to be one of those times… but two years later, I can say that I’ve had the pleasure and the shock of getting a sense for the underside of NYPD’s police force. The shock comes more from learning how poorly paid they are than from becoming privy to all the other stories of their struggles to stay on the path of righteousness. The script might be overheated at times, but one gets a pretty good understanding of the lives and times of Brooklyn’s finest cops. If this is the norm, then it is a certainly a sad testament to the entire police force, because what one sees is poverty, panic, despair, frustration, and a life of remorse. If that is the finest, I don’t want none of it!
But removing one’s sense of reality from the story, and focusing on the story itself, it is only fair to say that the performances given by the star cast is thoughtful, provoking, and startling to the end. The lives of these cops intersect every so often, many a time without their knowing it, and their individual stories are essentially case-studies of characters under pressure in an urban background infested with greed, fear, and violence.
Peace can’t be bought; neither can love. They come to you sometimes as a result of your hard work and perseverance; other times, there’s no rhyme or reason to understand the presence or their lack in one’s life. You make your choices, and then you learn to live with them.
