Lacking in credibility but highly energetic, “Line of Duty” features Aaron Eckhart as a cop from Birmingham, Alabama, whose day becomes drastically more complicated when he becomes embroiled in a kidnapping where the victim’s life is in immediate danger. This is the most recent work from Stephen C. Miller, who is the epitome of pro-police and anti-everyone-else, which is unsuitably voiced in the film’s constant nuances throughout pro-violence. Regardless, it can be expected that some audience segments will appreciate it. In any event, action-starved audiences who appreciate nonstop action will be glad to find an entertaining and increasingly absurd epic pursuit. It’s available on screens and on-demand from November 15, which is its scheduled release date.
Officer Frank Penny (Eckhart) is a beat cop with a cynical, almost defeated attitude (we don’t learn why until much, much later). He banters with a local kid named Elijah Cooper to pass the time before work. A couple of blocks away, some of his higher-ups are setting a sting to catch what they hope is one of the kidnappers of Chief Volk’s (Giancarlo Esposito) 11-year-old daughter (Nichelle Williams). But as usual, the criminal (James Hutchison) escapes. Chasing the chaos he hears on the police radio, Penny comes across the action. He has no authority to engage, but he disregards those orders and ends up in a fight that results in him shooting the other guy.
This is a catastrophe because the child is in a drowning room and has very little time left. Penny is left with no means of tracking her, and strife is the last thing she needs. To make matters worse, he is branded a damn cowboy causing him to lose all his identifying insignia. Feeling guilt for what could possibly be losing another innocent life (a feeling he is quite familiar with), he resolves to take the search into his own hands and enlist a highly unreliable teammate, Ava Brooks (Courtney Eaton).
She’s a loathsome internet live-streaming reporter-of-sorts, a journalist with a ‘trite, catchphrase-driven’ approach to Anti-authoritarianism. He has no choice but to let her tag along because time is running out and he wishes to use her car. The next hour or so is filled with explosions, car crashes, and gunfire, and they become interlaced with the pathological kidnapper antihero Ben, who has a bitter hatred towards law enforcement and indiscriminately slaughters anyone in his way.
Even though this film is riddled with its share of cliches, “Line of Duty” manages to shock the audience with boosts of energy to not render the movie unwatchable. It does reach absurd levels, including a climactic moment where we see a group of men suspended off a chopper, set ablaze. Mix in some last-minute dumpster fire rescues and miraculous surviving gunfire, and you have the premise of the movie. What’s more, and even more boneheaded, is writer Jeremy Drysdale’s anger-infused undertone, wherein Eckhart the cop gallantly whines and beats himself up over things out of his control while everyone outside seems filled to the brim with crybabies and lunatics.
Ava and her only colleague at “mediaforthepeople.com” (Jessica Lu as Clover), come off as young P.C. wannabes who use words such as “empowering” with no actual understanding or practical application to what they do. They do offer “the real news” as opposed to “that b.s. fed to you by corporations”, but it is fed to them in a manner that makes it impossible to digest. Instead of working, these two girls are obsessed with clickbait, illegally hacking police radio, and panic at the slightest sign of stress. Ava’s boss Penny shakes her head in disbelief when she encounters the numerous stressors these girls induce. Obviously, corporate media isn’t any better, represented in the movie as Dena Meyer’s cutthroat local television news manager. There are also caricatures of society’s supposed evils, like a black gay bodybuilder dressed in drag goggles, that switch off all serious tension here with patronizing Swagger
If you ignore the blunt messaging and consider “Line of Duty” as an action cartoon piled up with dramatic scenes, it is amusing enough even the absurd onset of motivational speech and hugs can be viewed as a little bit humorous. By casting Penny as the man of the old school who is not sure how the heck the intranet works, the film is very current in catering to the idea that nothing means anything unless it has some audience or the other. Nearly all of Frank and Ava’s adventures not only get streamed on the internet, they get televised later. In the end, the couple is shown to be applauded by a rainbow crowd of ambulance chasers who appear out of nowhere for the last cheer of the show.
Eckhart cheerfully puts himself into a challenging physical role. In terms of characterization, he and everyone else in this scene simply do not have enough material to work with, but they do the best they can with what they have. McKenzie, who is wonderfully talented, is especially squandered in the role of a villain who is so breathtakingly evil, that he is nearly frothing at the mouth.
Where “Line” (which until recently was titled “Live!”) excels is in getting a lot of bang for its buck in overall packaging, with solid orchestration of stunt work, crowds, well-chosen locations, and so forth. It’s all maximized by Stan Salfas’ sharp editing and DP Brandon Cox’s widescreen lensing. An occasional CGI element shows its seams, but otherwise, Miller proves adept at delivering something close to A-level production values on what were surely B budgetary means. However, as with his recent action-schlock vehicles for Willis, Stallone, Cage, etc. – comprising 10 features in the last 7 years the C-minus material makes you wish he’d aim a little higher.
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