Starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña, End of Watch is a movie detailing the day to day lives of fictional officers Brian Taylor and Mike Zavala. While most of the movie takes place in the front seat of there squad car the movie is never boring due to the relationship between the characters, the camera work, and the writing of the story.
The movie's strongest appeal is the relationship between the main characters. At its centre, the movie is a 109 minute bromance. Gyllenhaal and Peña play so well off of one another that you just might believe that they had grown up together, working day after day to keep L.A. safe. The only problem with this is that the characters never disagree. While they do poke fun at one another throughout the entire movie they never even consider that what the other did was wrong.
Another quality that the movie did well was the camera work. The movie was shot in the “home movie” style. Similar to Cloverfield and the Blair Witch Project, the movie is supposedly shot by officer Brian Taylor for a college thesis. The production crew went all out even editing in the picture texture to give it a mild static look for realism. This alone would mean nothing if the charters didn't address the camera.
Finally the story itself is very well written. If the writers had gone with some over the top action movie it would have lost most of its appeal. The reason the movie is so good is because the charters play well off each other. Not just the main characters, but all characters- the cops, the gangsters- are ground in a realism that adds depth to the entire movie.
In conclusion the movie does well with the writing and character development and I feel that the only shortcoming is that the movie feels short. Even though the movie is lengthy it crams so many events into such a small amount of time the pacing just seems extraordinarily fast.
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