Year: 2019

Runtime: 99 Minutes

Director: Brian Kirk

Writer: Adam Mervis, Matthew Michael Carnahan

Stars: Chadwick Boseman, Sienna Miller, J.K. Simmons, Taylor Kitsch, Stephan James

“21 BRIDGES” opens with a young Andre Davis (Christian Isaiah) at the funeral of his police officer father who was killed by some drug dealers and the clear effect it has on him. Scroll ten years forward to an adult Andre (Chadwick Boseman) who has grown up to be a cop himself, but one with a notable tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.  This leads to him being called up in front of Bureau of Internal Affairs.

As this is happening to him, what is supposed to be a small time drug heist, goes down and several police officers are coldly gunned down by the two criminals who blundered into this unexpected disaster, Ray (Taylor Kitsch) and Michael (Stephan James), both war veterans and extremely loyal to one another. Ray is the typical villain while Michael, although loyal to him, has more sense and compassion and wanted to walk away once things were clearly not going to plan.

“Although the plot is not original, the story was fine with good editing, however the script could have been better and acting was average at times. It’s still a decent bang for it’s buck.”

Police Captain McKenna (J.K. Simmons) now has a bunch of cops out for revenge for their fallen officers. In a rare move on this mission-almost-impossible, he decides to pair up Andre with narcotics officer Frankie Burns (Sienna Miller), a tough as nails undercover with a mind of her own – though you get the sense there is more to her than meets the eye.  As the two criminals take to the streets of Manhattan on the run, and with the FBI breathing down their back to take over, Andre makes the decision to shut the entire city of Manhattan down all exit/entries closed hence all 21 bridges leading in and out of the city.

Shaken by the loss of eight of his officers, Capt. McKenna continues to hint to Davis to live up to his reputation and take no prisoners.  But Davis’ intuition kicks in as very early on, it becomes clear that dirty cops are involved with all the incidents seemingly pointing to a conspiracy of sorts, and Andre doesn’t know whom to trust. With that, Andre has just one night to solve the case and catch the killers before they escape the city of Manhattan.

Not going into full detail of the entire plot which, needless to say, has many twists and turns sort of running parallel are a police procedural and a crime story from the POV of the criminals. Yet the twists are obvious and predictable with the dialogue being somewhat routine.

“Not going into full detail of the entire plot which, needless to say, has many twists and turns…Yet the twists are obvious and predictable with the dialogue being somewhat routine.”

With a decent character development “21 Bridges” should be Boseman’s vehicle, yet it’s Stephen James who is the stand out here. Not only does his character feel like the one with the most to lose, but he’s got a story behind him that conflicts with his actions and he plays it well enough to the point of actually wanting to see him to get away with it all at times.

Nothing super new here story-wise, but the camera work and action scenes were marvelous. Although the plot is not original, the story was fine with good editing, however the script could have been better and acting was average at times. It’s still a decent bang for it’s buck.

Grade: C-

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Media Review Screening: Wednesday, November 20, 2019 ~ Courtesy of STX Entertainment

“21 BRIDGES” IS OUT NOW IN THEATERS WORLDWIDE