Austin Burke’s review published on Letterboxd:
👍🏻73%
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End of Watch is a thoroughly impressive film from top to bottom. It features compelling characters and an interesting filmmaking style. The final act of the movie is easily the most engaging part, and the ending (clearly) is meant to leave you baffled and devastated. Ayer has such an interesting style that he brings to all of his films. Sometimes it’s a bit much, but it works well here. He also incorporates this mixture of handheld angles, wides, and close-up shaky-cam. I love the idea, but I’m not sure if it paid off here. It’s awesome at first, but I’m of the mindset that he needed one approach or the other. Mixing all of these different types of camera angles worked well for many viewers, but I would have much preferred sticking to one. It’s shot (for the most part) like a documentary, and that does allow us to build (what feels like) a personal relationship with our characters.
The film follows the daily grind of two young police officers in LA who are partners and friends, and what happens when they meet criminal forces greater than themselves. The performances are great, and their chemistry flourishes. Gyllenhaal is top-notch as always, but it’s Peña who proves to be a massive surprise. He can go from this to Ant-Man style humor flawlessly, and it makes him a fantastic actor overall. It’s a shockingly stacked cast, and the film is filled with fun action scenes. It definitely knows when to get serious, but just the fact that this is so different is fun. My other issues spawn from the story itself, as the overall conflict is a bit boring. Granted, the fallout and final battle between everyone is not boring, but we hit a small lull in the second act. The exploration of what they encounter turns out to be extremely engrossing, and it is that buildup that is going to grab so many. This may actually be the best use of “balance” that we have seen from Ayer, even if there were elements that didn’t work overall. I wanted to absolutely love it, but it’s a sweet film for sure.
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