Street Kings (2008)

It's hard to impress audiences these days with a dirty cop thriller, what with The Departed, Training Day, and F/X's The Shield. How do you live up to those? You got to give Street Kings props for making a worthy effort. Things start out a bit convoluted, but improve as the film progresses.

Rating: C+

Ray (2004)

I don't see how any other leading male performer can outdo what Jamie Foxx did in this role. He deserved to win the Oscar. That said, the film itself does not, nor does the director. It's a good movie and I enjoyed it, but I think it could have been much better.

The story focuses too much on Ray's drug addiction and whoring around. While this may be factual stuff, I think the audience would have gotten the picture with half as many scenes devoted to it. Instead, they could have spent more time on Ray's earlier years. I would have liked to see more about how he became such a fantastic piano player. All we got was a 2 minute sketch of him dinking around at the age of 5.

Terrific performance, pretty good movie.

Rating: C+