journal features

movie review - End of Watch

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2018.10.23

This is the story of two men who join LA's police force in the time when the city (and continent) are being overrun by the drug trade. It follows their lives as they marry and have kids and start to run afoul of the local gangs just by attempting to do their jobs. The movie treads a line between the downright harrowing situation in the US today and trying to tell a human story of two cops trying to do their job.

I really enjoyed the tale. The impending sense of doom as things become worse on the streets and the brazen scale of the drug trade becomes clear. The injuries suffered by their colleagues in the line of duty. The nearly impossible job of just staying an honest and motivated person while society disintegrates.

I will add that I've noticed a certain trend in movie-making now where they seem to feel the need to escape from the story in a way that borders on breaking the fourth wall. I don't really know how to explain it but it's like a moment of lecturing rather than story-telling. This movie has some fleeting moments of that but less than say, "Requiem for a Dream" and certainly nothing like "Da 5 Bloods".

Strongly recommended.

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges