Watch Officer Down For Free

Did you people see the same film I saw?

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Stephen Dorff has always had a dangerous, flint spark vibe to his work, and he employs it fully here in Officer Down, playing Detective David Callahan, a corrupt, volatile cop with a drug problem, and past affiliations with the wrong kind of people. This film is what many would classify as a b movie, but I for one found it a careful, well casted and acted, loving throwback to the gritty cop flicks of the 70's, something in the vein of Joe Carnahan's Narc, or even Training Day. It sets up for an out and out action headbanger, but surprised me by calming down, and subverting itself, becoming a well structured, exciting, character based crime story that had me paying attention the entire time. Callahan has a past of slumming it in shady, mob run clubs, up to his ears in coke and whores. When his crooked past comes back to haunt him in the form of clues to a forgotten cold case that conveniently seem to fall into his lap, he's spurred to dig up old, painful memories to get to the truth of what's been going on. For an out of left field indie, it has a surprisingly intricate plot that I really didn't expect, and the mid story twists are invigorating, and reminded me why I love this sub genre. The eclectic cast alone is enough to warrant interest, with many an actor cast far against type to excellent result. James Woods pisses everyone off as spitfire police captain Verona, David Boreanaz and Stephen Lang kick in great work as Callahan's suspicious colleagues. Dominic Purcell nicely underplays a strip club owning prick with silent, mirthful evil, Annalyne McCord is great as A stripper in mortal danger, Walton Goggins is awesome as Detective Logue, aka The Angel, who figures mysteriously in the plot, and there's nice work from Soulja Boy, Tommy Flanagan, Oleg Taktarov, and Johnny Messner in a cameo as a growling ex cop psycho. All the elements are brought together nicely to give us a bare bones, tough ass dose of character driven pulp that really enjoyable.

This film was some kind of a roller coaster intellectually, with a very different dramaturgy build of the story line. The excitement isn't in this film as you expect. I think you need to be aware of this following if you are to enjoy this: 1) Watch everything with a sharp eye, down to the details of writing and dialog. 2) Be prepared to see a film where nothing is like it seems to be. 3) The slow up build is for you to understand the rest, so be patient! 4) Expect this storytelling to be very different from the common Hollywood dramatic model. 5) This is not a thriller, rather a mind bending movie. 6) Watch this you are a detective yourself.Most people watching this will have problems with it, if you're not prepared. This is a film which will have great fans, and lots of haters. It's a good film, but I must criticize it for being difficult to comprehend. It's in no way perfectly made to give the effect the makers wanted. Most of the audience are not able to follow a film like this if they are not identifying with some if the actors, or if they find the story exciting. This is where this film falls. We'll acted, doesn't mean you are absorbed with the story. Still quite good, if you have the patience. This film grows the last half hour. If you don't get it, it doesn't mean you're stupid. It just tells this wasn't your kind of mystery or that you weren't laying enough attention to the details.The great slow heavy song at the club one hour into the film is Aaron Hendra "Bad machine".

It's better than "Brake", and certainly more entertaining than "Somewhere".I rented "Pawn" and "Officer Down" last night for a b-cop-double-feature. Pawn was alright, but Officer Down gets the nod out of the two for its' better acting across the board.It marginally works as a character study.The pacing is alright and the writing isn't half-bad.The film needed a bit more interaction and back-story to the marriage/wife - which might have added some genuine drama. Really, that was the problem with both of these movies.While this is a "b" movie, and I am rating it a 6(56/100), I'm not going to be adding to my "jeremy's B Movie marathon list". I don't know that I can give this my recommendation, but there are certainly worse options in the redbox.The film has just enough surprises, and that 'better than usual' performance from the lead that makes this slightly better than average, and certainly better than most of the b-straight-to-DVD fair that's out there.

This is one of those dirty gritty cop thrillers where the line between good and bad simply does not exist. Personally I prefer these types of movies to the standard police thriller where the police are clearly on the good guys side and the suspect is clearly one of the bad guys. While some of them with a good dose of action, or a good dose of comedy, are good, it is the ones, like this one, where the black and white view of society pretty much morphs into an ugly shade of grey.The movie is set in Bridgeport Conneticuit, which I liked because of the shift away from the standard New York, Los Angeles, Chicago (or random small town) setting of most American movies. It is always good to actually move away from these standard settings to realise that all of the action simply does not happen in one of these three cities. It is also about a police officer who has managed to clean himself up after what appeared to be a random shooting (though we find out more about it afterwards) and move onto the straight and narrow. Also, right at the beginning of the film, we are also introduced to the major theme, and that is perception as opposed to reality.The idea is to project a perception of the police force so that people can have confidence in the police, and as such when it turns out that a police officer has gone bad, the who mess is swept under the carpet. However, if it is possible to hang one of them out to dry, then it can be done as well. Make an example of one of them so that all the others fall in line. This begins with an incident where our main character has finally caught up with a rapist who, after being arrested, turns out to be a cop. However, in the interview room, we also notice that on one hand, we have the lawyer trying to plead mental incapacity, and on the other hand the captain wanting to keep the whole sordid mess hush hush.The main character is portrayed very much as a loner. He goes about his own business, and investigates his own personal cases. In fact, Stephen Dorf, who is the lead actor, does a brilliant job at this. This is not a partner movie where the cops partner up and buddy buddy all the way through the film. No, there is too many skeleton's in the closet for that to happen. True, he has a good family life, but even then that was on the rocks for a while as well.In most cases, it is all about perception verse reality. It is one of those films where as it progresses, more and more becomes revealed. The perception, the illusionary veil, is slowly pierced to bring about the reality of what is going on. Even then, by the end of the film, when all is said and done, the attempt at keeping the veil intact is maintained. However, it is interesting, and whether this is based on fact or not, the film indicates that the person who was the main person responsible for the veil, while doing time, does not do as much time as the one who successfully ripped the veil to shreds (but there is a reason for that, which I won't go into).