It was an interesting concept. They tell the story of good guys and bad guys in South-Central L.A. (an extremely dangerous place, in case you didn't know from all the rap music that focuses on it.) This story it told through the shaky camera footage that both gangsters are coppers are filming in a bizarre directorial decision that I did not like very much.
For one thing, the police force would not tolerate the documenting of police work in this fashion. IT would certainly result inJake Gyllenhaal' character, who is named Bryan. For the most part Brian has taken an interest in filming his day-to-day police work which consists mostly of himself and his partner Miguel (Michael Pena.)
The gang that also films there stuff for whatever, I presume social media, is even worse. Partially because one of the main gangsters named "La La" is played by rapper / "actress" Flakiss, and wow, she is just so bad.
and, i'm sorry, she kind of looks like Marilyn Manson too
I think the director (David Ayer) was hoping for some sort of recognition for an interesting take on a story and using the perspective of people who film everything themselves (which is a fair representation of today's society) for the sake of self-indulgent social media posts or something. However, the end result is a film that is kind of difficult to watch. There was some speculation that a lot of the script was ad-libbed and i'll tell you what, it certainly seems that way because the story is pretty horrible.
I was extremely disappointed in this one as I only watched it because a scene popped up on a list of "most badass scenes in cinema history." I would love for someone out there to try to defend this film on merit other than a correct representation of the world's obsession with recording everything. I don't think you can do it because this movie is just bad. Some of the acting is ok, but even Jake and Michael (actors i respect and admire) don't do very well in this movie.



