Really well acted, but lot of flaws, from the extremely tired and forced hand held cameras, just shoot the movie normal, and use a few hand cam scenes, like the ICE survallence in Mexico, which was another kind of ridulous scene, with the drug lord looking like a bad send up of Escobar, complete with cowboy hat, and fatness.
The cartel element was odd, and felt forced, those groups, without a doubt operate in almost all cities in the US, esp. LA, Sinaloa has a heavy presence, but they don't drive around with gold and diamond plated weapons, that's some only down south shyt, they don't chop up the contras and leave narco messages here, and they don't order hits on cops. Or mix stash spots with safe houses for people. Those golden plated weapons are like some upper tier management/boss shyt, you don't just get one because you are a runner, or a safe house watchmen. And did those dudes stumble on every stash spot in the city? I thought the director was interested in the narco killings and wars, and got some little details right, but was out of place in LA.
I felt the music was overbearing, and too much in some scenes, too. 'Hey Ma' wasn't overbearing, but cringe worthy. Other scenes, had the heavy love song for the romance, love scenes, rap music for cruising the city. The gangs were well done, Ayer always excels in his realistic characterization of that element of LA, I felt the most compelling character was lala, the women.
A lot of it was done well, but the third act, lack of a plot, all really hurt the movie, but not so much it can't be enjoyed. Why did it deteriorate into a running gunfight, that was really not believable? The shooters just strolling away from a 10 minute shootout? And, shooting the dude 100x, he did the same thing in 'Training Day', and I didn't like it there either.
So white boy just gonna live after taking a AK round to the chest?
at that white man
