Don Cheadle "was resplendent in a dove gray golf ensemble on a gun metal gray day" at a celebrity golf thing recently here's proof). He's alsoan excellent actor:
Some actors are so good they can elevate a project just by showing up.
Don Cheadle is one of those actors.
The movies Cheadle has appeared in are fairly evenly divided between crowd pleasers such as Hotel For Dogs and smarter, chewier movies such as Hotel Rwanda, Crash or Devil in a Blue Dress.
His current project, Brooklyn’s Finest, is a bit of both — he co-stars with Richard Gere and Ethan Hawke, and all three men play police officers in New York.
The film has all the shoot-’em-up action required to make it a big popcorn movie, but at the same time it’s a drama about bad guys and good guys and the grey areas in between....
I, of course, haven't seen any of his films. I also haven't seen the superbowl commercial for Brooklyn's Finest, and I won't be seeing his FunnyOrDie sketch when it plays on HBO. I'll check that out when I finish writing this up, though. Free & easy, right?
Brooklyn's Finest comes out next weekend, and a quick look at Google shows that all the actors are working the hype machine. I saw more Wesley Snipes than anyone, but there's a whole working week to go. Here's part of the summary, via RottenTomatoes:
Burned out veteran Eddie Dugan (Golden Globe®-winner Richard Gere) is just one week away from his pension and a fishing cabin in Connecticut. Narcotics officer Sal Procida (Oscar® nominee Ethan Hawke) has discovered there’s no line he won’t cross to provide a better life for his long-suffering wife and seven children. And Clarence "Tango" Butler (Oscar® nominee Don Cheadle) has been undercover so long his loyalties have started to shift from his fellow police officers to his prison buddy Caz (Wesley Snipes), one of Brooklyn’s most infamous drug dealers. With personal and work pressures bearing down on them, each man faces daily tests of judgment and honor in one of the world’s most difficult jobs.
When NYPD’s Operation Clean Up targets the notoriously drug-ridden BK housing project, all three officers find themselves swept away by the violence and corruption of Brooklyn’s gritty 65th Precinct and its most treacherous criminals. During seven fateful days, Eddie, Sal and Tango find themselves hurtling inextricably toward the same fatal crime scene and a shattering collision with destiny.
Alas, RottenTomatoes only has five reviews so far -- and a rating of 40%. That's hardly enough to really judge, though. And although it was at Sundance a year ago (financial problems delayed its release), it reportedly "was one of only a few high-profile premieres that didn't get press screenings" -- which means there isn't even Sundance gossip about the movie. They have re-done the ending, which sort of raises an eyebrow. But hey, maybe it'll be an amazing movie. Which I won't get around to seeing anytime soon.
He might end up talking about something completely different tonight, though. |