21 Bridges | Film Review

 

Hey Guys x

This has been on Amazon Prime Video for a little while. I was never really particularly interested in it, because it seemed like a generic cop film, but I ended up watching it on a whim.

Andre Davis (Chadwick Boseman) is a detective for the NYPD. One night, while searching for two men who killed members of the police force, it is decided that all 21 bridges out of Manhattan will be closed in order to stop the suspects from escaping. But as the chase continues, Andre begins to wonder if he is in pursuit of the right people.

I enjoyed this film a lot more than I thought I would. It's not an amazing, life-changing film, but it's definitely better than the average cop movie.

It actually starts off as just that, the average cop movie. There's nothing that really sets the story apart.

It's great that our protagonist is morally grey right from the beginning of the film. Not only does it make the character more interesting, but it makes the whole film more interesting.

The thing that quickly stopped this story from becoming as generic as others was the time constraints. We are told right away that these characters only have a few hours to solve this crime, for legitimate reasons. This injects some much-needed excitement into the film.

The cast of this movie really surprised me. As well as Chadwick Boseman, the film also stars Sienna Miller, J. K. Simmons, Taylor Kitsch, Stephan James and Keith David. This is an amazing cast, especially compared to how badly the thing was promoted. I only knew about it because Chadwick Boseman spoke about it on the Graham Norton show, but other than that I saw practically no promotion for it.

This is a really good example of a plot-driven film. The characters are fine, but the plot is what makes it really stand out. The story is compelling, and you feel like you don't want to miss anything.

Having said all of this, the one thing that the film doesn't do well is keep its twists hidden. Many of the big things throughout the film are so predictable that it felt like they may as well have told us what was happening from the beginning. It would have been great to be genuinely surprised when certain things came to light.

Overall, this is a very entertaining film that I'd definitely recommend, even though it is more than a bit predictable. 

6.5/10

Lou

Edit - It was announced on the 29th August that Chadwick Boseman had passed away after battling colon cancer since 2016. To say this is devastating news would be an understatement. I have not seen enough of his films, but the ones that I have seen showed me how amazing an actor he was, and makes me so upset that we won't get to see how incredible his career would have continued to be.