End of Watch
The film End of Watch, directed by David Ayer, displays a great deal of a day in the life of cops in the Los Angeles Police Department. Taking place from multiple angles like body cams or dash cams throughout the movie, an inside look at drug crime and even human trafficking takes place. In this case, two officers, one white and one latino face much more than they originally bargained for as they end up facing a gang of cartel members. End of Watch focuses more-so on the “war on drugs,” aspect in America. There are many points and perspectives on the war on drugs, but law enforcement in Hollywood as well as the real world have much history with it and overall, it has always been a rocky road. The relationship between Hollywood and law enforcement definitely tends to favor cops in the majority of its films, making it almost always seem as if they do no wrong. There is no denying that law enforcement and the rest of the government wants to paint the picture that crime is always being fought the right way and the war on drugs is trying to be ended by the good guys, even if it is not always the case realistically.
The film End of Watch begins with a goofy pair of Los Angeles police officers, portrayed by one Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena. Gyllenhaal’s character, Brian Taylor and Pena’s, in Mike Zavala start their day like any other, running into occasional problems once they are assigned to patrol a bad part of town. Officers Taylor and Pena exhibit a clear significant bond right off of the bat, as they refer to each other as brothers constantly and talk about anything and everything personal with each other. Unlike the previous films assigned, those like Lethal Weapon and In the Heat of the Night, where the two main heroes take a little bit of time to get used to one another before they start to really establish a bond, these two are nearly inseparable right away. After a few run ins and altercations in this bad part of town, over the course of a few weeks they stumble upon what looks like a human trafficking as well as drug trade system going on within the area. As they begin to gain more and more knowledge on who’s behind it, the main antagonists, Big Evil and his cartel gang members make taking out Officer Taylor and Officer Zavala their new number one priority. As the duo begins to close in on them toward the end of the film, they are eventually led into a trap with zero back up and they are left trying to shoot their way out of the situation. Officer Mike Zavala is shot to death and Officer Brian Taylor is badly wounded when back up finally shows up and avenges them by taking out Big Evil and his gang. The scene cuts to black and one of the last things shown is Officer Taylor helped up to the stage to deliver a eulogy in front of an audience of fellow officers. All he could make out though were the four words, “He was my brother,” with heartbreaking pauses in the process. What is truly displayed here is the friendship and humanity within each of these two characters and shows a level of relationship status unseen by a previous pairing assigned. Obviously films like Let’s Be Cops and The Heat we saw relationships either further develop or even sprout into good connections between each other, but [You could include research and discuss here the dynamics of buddy cops ie how Hollywood presents the relationships between police; use class readings, be general]
[expand on this with historical research, you can easily get another paragraph or two from the historical context] The early stages in drug prohibition goes all the way back to the 1870’s, when anti-opium laws were first aimed at Chinese immigrants. Later on in the 1910’s in the south, laws against cocaine were directed at black men. As time passed though, it was really not until the 1960’s where youth felt “rebellious,” to use these drugs and finally in 1971 President Richard Nixon [definitely talk about Nixon and the politics and policies at the time that lead to the government’s declaration of the war on drugs] declared a “war on drugs.” Over this time under oath, numerous states decriminalized selected drugs only to later be turned over and banned again. The Reagan era expanded the drug war and by doing so showed a drastic increase in population behind bars for non-violent drug offenses from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 by 1997. Zero tolerance policies were put in place everywhere and at one point, then-Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates was heard saying “casual drug users should be taken out and shot.” The DARE education program was put in place for children to learn at an early age as well. Today it is mostly black and latino communities which are most heavily enforced and sentenced on drug charges and even in this movie, that rang true as each confrontation faced the respective ethnic group.
In most buddy cop films we have seen so far in class this semester, each and almost every single one has been the pairing of a black male and a white male. Throughout most of american history, black men and women have been treated very poorly, to say it in the most generous way possible and have since tried to save face by finally casting these black men in these more authoritative, law enforcement, good-guy-type of roles. [research the race issue and discuss, integrated it into the larger film issue; reference race relations between police in other films] What stood out in this film was that of the two main heroes/protagonists, the second cop was in fact a latino male. Now, throughout most cop movies latinos tend to be sometimes shown in that light where they are depicted as drug smuggling, low life bad guys.[note how even though skin color changes, the cultural and economic character of the “minority partner” is pretty much identical] It was nice to see “Officer Zavala,” portrayed by Michael Pena play this hero role, it was a good change. Historically, Hollywood has been pummeled for struggling with otherwise inclusion with lead latino actors and actresses. Lately, as early as even January 2018, a newer hashtag had gone viral called #LatinosLeftOut. A protest campaign named the National Hispanic Media Coalition claimed “Hollywood continues to be challenged by ethnic and gender diversity.”
There are challenges that face this country far beyond what meets the eye. What goes on behind closed doors within the government is way beyond us and it goes without question that our own government sometimes facilitates these drugs through the country, but this movie goes away from that and tries to show our Los Angeles police department as that protective shield for us in this war.
Works Cited
Ayer, Lesher, Vasyanov, Sardy, Gyllenhaal, Peña, Kendrick, Ayer, David. Universal Studios wwwHome Entertainment. End of Watch. Universal City, CA: Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 2013. Print.
Carroll, Rory. “Hollywood Basks in Diversity Praise but Latinos ask: Are we Invisible?” The wwwGuardian. Jan. 27 2018. Web.
Drug Policy Alliance. “A Brief History of the Drug War.” drugpolicy.org. Web.
Makarechi, Kia. “Drug War Movies: How Hollywood Treats America’s Complicated wwwRelationship With Drugs.” Huffington Post. Feb. 28 2012. Web.
NEJM Staff. "The War on Drugs." The New England Journal of Medicine 331.2 (1994): 126-29. Web.
PBS, Public Broadcasting Service. “30 Years of America’s Drug War.” PBS. Web.
Peterseim, Locke. “Interview: End of Watch Star Michael Peña and Writer-Director David Ayers www» Hammer & Thump – A Film Blog.” Open Letters Monthly an Arts and Literature Review Marc Chagall Between Paris and Vitebsk Comments, Open Letters Monthly. Sep. 21 2012. Web.