Best known for  the Oscar- winning “Training Day,   director Antoine Fuqua  delivers another gritty,  uber-bloody look at cops- so bleak-   you wonder how any of them  in hard-core precincts manage to stay straight .

 Focusing on one week on  the meanest streets of  Brooklyn  , Fuqua again turns to Ethan Hawk to play one of his tormented  cops with Richard Gere as  a depressed, hardened vet about to  retire and Don Cheadle  as an undercover cop on the verge of breaking from all his stressors . Wesley Snipes  is Cheadle’s unlikely street ally – who’s fresh out of  prison Hawke and Cheadle are outstanding . 

The story goes way over the top  but it’s non-stop action from start to finish.

3 stars