One of the filmmakers you might not expect to see at the Sundance Film Festival is Antoine Fuqua, who cut his teeth on studio movies over the last ten years, the most memorable one being Training Day, a tough L.A. police story which earned Denzel Washington an Oscar and Ethan Hawke his own nomination.
Fuqua brought his new police drama Brooklyn’s Finest, made outside of the studio system, to this year’s festival looking for distribution and reactions from Sundance’s legendary movie-loving audiences.
Besides moving to the East Coast, this is a very different movie in that it explores the day-to-day lives of three police officers in different stages of their careers, pulling varying duties in the war against drugs and crime in Brooklyn. Richard Gere plays Eddie, a 20-year vet who is just a week away from retirement, who turns to alcohol and a prostitute named Chantel, to get him through what has been an unfulfilling career as a police officer. Don Cheadle is Tango, who has been working undercover in the thick of drugdealers and killers, trying to maintain that cover while desperately wanting to get away from all the death and violence. Brooklyn’s Finest also reunites Fuqua with Ethan Hawke, who plays Sal, a narcotics officer trying to make ends meet to support his family, who gets into a lot of bad situations as he tries to get what he thinks he deserves.
Made outside the studio system, Brooklyn’s Finest may be Fuqua’s finest efforts as a filmmaker, filled with stirring realism and authenticity about what real police officers go through every day without resorting to the sensationalism and Hollywood endings we’ve become so accustomed to.
ComingSoon.net sat down with Fuqua at the Stella Artois Lounge on Main Street to talk to him about what could be his best film to date.
Check out their exclusive interview with the Training Day filmmaker at ComingSoon.net.
