Genre Grandeur – End of Watch (2012) – MovieRob

For this month’s next review for Genre Grandeur – Found Footage Movies, here’s a review of End of Watch (2012) by me.

Thanks again to Tim of FilmFunkel for choosing this month’s genre.

Next month’s Genre has been chosen by Natasha of Life of This City Girl We will be reviewing our favorite Sci-Fi Movies.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of January by sending them to scifinatasha@movierob.net  Try to think out of the box! Great choice Natasha!

Let’s see what I thought of this movie:

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“I am the police, and I’m here to arrest you. You’ve broken the law. I did not write the law. I may even disagree with the law but I will enforce it. No matter how you plead, cajole, beg or attempt to stir my sympathies, nothing you do will stop me from placing you in a steel cage with gray bars. If you run away I will chase you. If you fight me I will fight back. If you shoot at me I will shoot back. By law I am unable to walk away. I am a consequence. I am the unpaid bill. I am fate with a badge and a gun. Behind my badge is a heart like yours. I bleed, I think, I love, and yes I *can* be killed. And although I am but one man, I have thousands of brothers and sisters who are the same as me. They will lay down their lives for me, and I them. We stand watch together. The thin-blue-line, protecting the prey from the predators, the good from the bad. We are the police. ” – Brian Taylor

Number of Times Seen – 2 (27 Nov 2012 and 27 Dec 2015)

Brief Synopsis – The life and hard work of two LA police officers is shown via camera footage.

My Take on it – Found Footage was actually the most difficult choice for me for genre grandeur since its inception nearly two years ago.

I was able to count on one hand the number of FF movies that I had seen before this month and none of them are considered amongst my favorite movies.

I definitely applaud Tim for choosing this genre if not only to expose me to more films that are made in this style.

I doubt that I will keep looking for one I’ll love, but perhaps I’ll come across some one of these days and this month’s viewings have helped me appreciate the genre a bit more.

Tnx Tim!

Up until this month, here is the list of FF movies that I had seen:

1. Project Almanac (2014)
2. Europa Report (2013)
3. Chronicle (2012)
4. Sinister (2013)
5. and this one

This movie came the closest in my opinion to be the best of the ones that I’ve seen.

I really enjoyed the way that they showed the difficult and thankless job of LAPD cops on the beat and how their personal lives are also affected by the job that they do.

The perspective shown here is quite intense and because it was filmed in the FF style, it actually makes the film feel even more realistic.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena have great chemistry together and I understand that most of their conversations are improvised which means that the actors also hit it off while making this movie.

This is filmed in a very gritty fashion which makes the world shown to be very lived in and dirty which also makes it feel more realistic.

Some of the plotline feels a bit too far-fetched and that is one of my qualms about this movie.

Bottom Line – The found footage aspect helps make this movie feel very realistic. Excellent performances by Gyllenhaal and Pena who seem to have great chemistry on and off screen.  Slightly far-fetched plot takes away from some of the impact. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – As part of their training, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña spent five months doing 12-hour ride-alongs with on-duty LAPD officers. During Gyllenhaal’s first ride-along, he witnessed a murder.   (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy

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