Street Kings

Directed by David Ayer -- who wrote Training Day and wrote and directed Harsh Times -- Street Kings is pretty much more of the same: The lone (white) hero must navigate the mean streets, confront an array of differently raced opponents (including Koreans, Hispanics, and African Americans here), and, oh yes, bed a "hot" Latina love interest (Martha Higareda). While Tom's boss attributes his bad behavior -- drunkenness, use of excessive force, general bad mood -- to the fact that his wife was cheating on him and then died, Tom's lack of focus doesn't actually grant him much in the way of "motive."

Worse, for all the lip service given to Tom's terrific intelligence and instinct, he's awfully slow on the uptake. Viewers can tell which characters he can and can't trust as soon as they pop up on screen, but somehow Tom is tricked repeatedly. By the time he runs into a cliché of a gangster (played by the ever-smooth Common) who calls himself "straight nightmare," you're so far ahead of him that you wonder if he'll ever catch up.