Don Cheadle enjoys a fine time in Brooklyn

Brooklyn’s Finest marks the return of director Antoine Fuqua to the crime genre that made his name, with Training Day in 2002.

Just like that film, one of highlights of Brooklyn’s Finest is that it has a great cast made up of actors rather than movie stars. The cast includes Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, Richard Gere, Ellen Barkin and a revitalised Wesley Snipes.

The film features three distinct storylines that focus on troubled cops working in the poor New York district of Brooklyn. First there’s Sal (Hawke), a family man who is struggling to make ends meet on his police salary and begins to be tempted by the drug money that gets recovered during drug busts.

Next there’s Eddie (Gere), who is a burnt out beat cop who, in the last few days before retirement, starts to reconsider his life and what it means to be a police officer.

The third story thread centres around the character played by Don Cheadle. Despite the number of impressive names in the cast, the film rests firmly on the shoulders of the Academy Award-nominated actor. Cheadle plays the role of conflicted undercover cop Tango, a man who tries to reconcile his duty as a cop with his loyalty to the local drug boss (Snipes) who saved his life.

Impressive

Cheadle is one of those actors whose name doesn’t always inspire recognition, but when he turns up on screen most people can instantly recall him from his impressive turns in Crash, Out Of Sight, Traffic and Hotel Rwanda (for which he received an Oscar nomination in 2004).

Much of what made Crash great was the impressive ensemble cast and Cheadle says that this is what drew him to Brooklyn’s Finest.

“Well, there was a wheel barrel full of money that was brought to my house, and it turned out not to be counterfeit, so I was in,” he jokes. “But, no, I wanted the opportunity to work on something like this with Antoine, who I think has a real firm grasp on this genre. Once he started to tell me the cast members, I thought it would be a great opportunity to work with Wesley Snipes and the others, in a real drama.

“It just seemed like a pretty interesting story interwoven between these three different cops and how they need to deal with their different situations. I just thought it was pretty interesting and it had a real authenticity, I thought.”

The film is pretty intense throughout and paints an unglamorous picture of undercover police work, showing the huge pressure these officers are under as well as the conflict that comes from having two sets of loyalties. It’s this sense of duality that Cheadle was keen to get right with his performance as well as being truthful to what these men and women have to go through in the performance of their duties.

“Well it’s someone who has been under for a very long time, and those lines become very blurry, because all those experiences day to day and moment to moment aren’t with your fellow police officers. They are with people that you are facing real violence, and real death with, and you’ve got to have each other’s backs,” he says.

“There’s realness on that level, and when I talked to real undercover cops, there is always that moment where they have to go, ‘whoa whoa, wait a minute, I’m a cop’.  Because these people, the criminals, you are growing these bonds with… that fucks with your mind, to have to lie every day, and every moment. How do you feel about yourself, and who are you at the end of the day?”

Cheadle adds: “This is a character that wasn’t going home at the end of the day, but was still in the streets, so it makes sense to me that he was this conflicted about what he was going to do and how he was going to serve both these masters, so to speak.”

According to Cheadle, one of the added attractions of the role, was the chance to work with Wesley Snipes who after years of unwelcome IRS attention and numerous rubbish action movies, makes a decent comeback in the film.

“We had a really good time, even when it was just me and him in a car, where we just sit there and talk, just two men discussing their fate and where they are. Wesley is a real actor so we had a lot of fun,” he says.

He laughs as he remembers that even though he is an Oscar nominated actor, it was Snipes and fellow actors, Mike Williams and Hassan Johnson who drew the most attention during the location shooting inside Brooklyn’s poor housing projects.

“It was great for me to hang back, and watch Wesley, Mike, and Hassan walk through the streets and get the thralls of people following them. I just walked by, and they didn’t pay any attention to me (laughs); I just walked by them.  Cause, ya know, Wesley’s a huge star down there, but no bigger than Mike Williams and Hassan, from The Wire.  Those dudes were the stars,” Cheadle says.

Rare authenticity

The film was shot on location as much as possible on director Antoine Fuqua’s insistence; in order to retain a level of authenticity that is still rare in crime films and something that Cheadle feels gives Brooklyn’s Finest a real power.

“This has been a whole brand new thing, working in Brooklyn and in the projects,  and I am glad we were able to pull that off. I think Antoine’s eye for detail and authenticity really helps to bring this stuff alive.

“No one has ever shot anything there. No one has ever stopped to look at them and their lives. I think that’s something that we wanted to talk about and focus on. And Antoine pulled from the community. He pulled a lot of people from the community to help work on the film, so I think there was a real nice kind of reciprocity in that way, and I personally never felt scared.”

As well as the demands of shooting on location, the complex narrative of the film meant that much of the filming was done out of sequence and when asked about how difficult this must have been for the actors, Cheadle is dismissive of the difficulties.

“It’s called the job,” he says. “I have never worked on a movie that has shot in sequence, ever, never once. I mean, there will be big portions of it that do, but there is inevitably a moment in between all that stuff that you shoot in February, and now you’re in July, and ‘where was I then?’

“You need to go back, and look at the continuity and look at the tape. It’s the job. You really have to take good notes. And also, having a director who’s got that all in their head, so they can really make sure you’re in the right place,” he says.

Cheadle adds that working with a director of Fuqua’s caliber does make “the job” a little easier:

“Antoine is definitely not afraid to be collaborative, which means you don’t have to force yourself into someone else’s vision without having some latitude and bringing something of yourself to the film and the ability to flesh out your character.”

2010 is a pretty big year for the actor who was already seen recently in Iron Man 2. As well as Brooklyn’s Finest, Cheadle will star in a film called The Guard later this year. The film was shot in Spiddal, Co Galway last year and is executive produced by the actor. The Guard is the story of Gerry Boyle, played by Brendan Gleeson, an eccentric small town Garda who has to team up with Cheadle’s straight-laced FBI agent to foil an international drug gang.

It’s hardly the sort of film you would expect to see Cheadle star in, but given his eye for good material and collaborators, the John Michael McDonagh directed flick could be one to watch out for.

Leo Stiles

Brooklyn’s Finest is released nationwide on 9 June.