It was pint sized Paul Simon and high brow headed Art Garfunkel who first warbled their worries about a Bridge over Troubled Waters and in 21 Bridges there is some really troubled water. Thankfully on hand we have Chadwick Boseman no longer a Black Panther but Detective Andre Davis who we see first see as a child at the funeral of his highly regarded police officer father who was killed in action. 19 years later it has driven him on to join NYPD where he is facing internal affairs for his high rate as a killer cop who kills cop killers. So when a whole load of uniformed officers are slaughtered attending to a closed Manhattan restaurant in the middle of the night he’s just the right man to hunt down the suspects. The cop killers here are two men hired to steal 30 kilos of cocaine from a restaurant only to find 300 kilos of cocaine and when patrol officers attend the venue all hell breaks loose in a brutal shootout with the two men on the run.
Aiming for gritty noir feel Boseman doesn’t have, ‘24 hours or the mayor is on my ass!’ but rather only 4 hours knowing that the men will have left the island of Manhattan pretty quickly and are unlikely to ever be seen again and that the 21 Bridges leading from Manhattan are closed down and then Boseman will, ‘flood the island with blue’. Like many police thrillers there’s little concession made to credible police procedure with Boseman’s detective seemingly able to have rank to close down the bridges and able to conjure up a force mobilization at 1am.
Boseman is good in the role aided by Sienna Miller in a not wholly necessary supporting role as a narcotics cop and 21 Bridges is produced by the Russo Brothers who are no strangers to action with their Marvel films. Breezily directed by Brian Kirk who has an extensive background in TV drama 21 Bridges has plenty of pace with a sense of urgency about the manhunt but it doesn’t move along quickly enough to gloss over the plot holes and inconsistencies and the twist in the tail as to the conspiracy that is uncovered is flagged up early on. Nonetheless it’s an enjoyable cop drama if a little low on credibility.
Here’s the 21 Bridges trailer…….
