21 Bridges ** (2019, Chadwick Boseman, Sienna Miller, J K Simmons, Stephan James, Taylor Kitsch, Keith David) – Movie Review

Chadwick Boseman stars in director Brian Kirk’s run-of-the-mill crime thriller 21 Bridges as gun-happy NYPD detective Andre Davis, who leads the Manhattan manhunt for a pair of cop killer robbers (Stephan James, Taylor Kitsch), after they kill eight police who disturb their cocaine heist.

Andre is saddled with a white female partner he doesn’t want, drugs cop Frankie Burns (Sienna Miller), as he orders Manhattan shut down overnight while he desperately tries to find the killers, a trail that leads him unexpectedly to uncover a massive cop conspiracy.

The problems with this promising and ambitious movie are that it lacks freshness and credibility, with its generic heist sequence and familiar subway chase as the main action highlights. They are reasonably well staged, but we have seen them all umpteen times before. The routine nature of the film is a script problem, the basic weaknesses and flaws in the screenplay by Adam Mervis (also story), Matthew Michael Carnahan.

Two other problems: (1.) the acting is not great, with Sienna Miller, J K Simmons and Taylor Kitsch all working below their best levels. You know a movie is in trouble if J K Simmons can make little impact in his scenes. It may be the dialogue, or his character, or the story, but he is defining foundering, lack his usual authority. Miller and Kitsch are barely credible in their roles. Boseman and James have authority, and have the best of what’s going. Even so, Boseman is not on the kind of form he is in Black Panther (2018),

Other problem 2 is the film’s sense of its own importance and significance, leading it to start of with three drossy scenes before the actual start with the heist. A basically stale thriller like this needs a relentlessly fast pace and zinging action scenes.

[Spoiler alert] Did I mention other problem 3? The massive cop conspiracy involving absolutely everybody is just not credible. Though this does mean that all the movie’s characters die, in quite a Shakespearean fashion. As they are mostly such scum, we are encouraged to believe that this is a good thing. All this killing, though, is neither exciting nor credible, nor very nice, just miserable. And the idea of the total Manhattan lock down for the first time in its history in the story challenges belief too.

It has a bit of a neo noir feel to it in Paul Cameron’s moody cinematography, but not quite enough. Imagine if Michael Mann had made this movie, or Martin Scorsese, or even Quentin Tarantino.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com