Gang Related

As is probably inevitable for a film with two corrupt, murderous, drug-dealing cops for protagonists, Gang Related is a nasty, vicious little movie. It's also an excellent genre film. Like a good pulp novel, it tells a lurid story cleanly and effectively, without calling undue attention to itself. The cast is uniformly excellent, with James Earl Jones, David Paymer and Gary Cole making good turns in supporting roles. Belushi turns in a surprisingly restrained performance as the nastier of the two corrupt cops, but the real surprise here is Shakur's work as an essentially moral officer who is gradually sickened by the murky moral swamp in which he finds himself. Shakur's growth as an actor since his unheralded debut performance in Nothing But Trouble is nothing short of remarkable Read full review

Shakur is superb, as I said, but so is Belushi. Initially a kind of glowering Bozo whose very sleaze is seductive and whose efficiency is attractive -- he's very Dirty Harry-like in his solutions to criminal problems -- he drifts off, almost banally, into the most repellent of all evils, the criminal sociopath masquerading under the flag of authority and using the system to hide his tracks. He stops being funny and merely becomes horrifying. Read full review

Kauf, whose Stakeout was a lighter blend of the same kind of elements at work here, knows just how to play the material to keep it enjoyable. That's not an easy task, considering that the main characters are pretty reprehensible and the basic plotline is about covering up the accidental murder of a cop. Nevertheless, in part because of a series of good performances and in part because Kauf approaches things with confidence, the results are positive. Gang Related may not be Pulp Fiction, but it's not a bad foray into tangential territory. Read full review

But the most interesting aspect of the film is its sense of karmic retribution. Coincidences pile so high that "Gang Related" sometimes seems like a comedy -- not necessarily a bad thing. They all point to a larger force at work. Though not every evil is punished, the events in this film noir seem to have sprung from chaos theory: In their randomness, they draw a pattern. Gang Related"delights in bedeviling the devils. Read full review

Gang Related isn't perfect; the plot does get a bit far-fetched at times, bordering on ironic overkill, and the last 10 minutes of bloody revenge is needlessly out-of-synch with the rest of the movie. You walk away from Kouf's movie not entirely happy about what it turned out to be, but overjoyed at what it is not. Sometimes, that's good enough. Read full review

A cleverly written thriller in which he and Jim Belushi portray corrupt police detectives whose actions unleash an unpredictable chain of sometimes dire, sometimes hilarious events. [8 Oct 1997, p.32]

For most of the film, I sat in quiet amazement: I was witnessing a complex, well-crafted, clearly told story, in a screenplay that moved well and had dialogue that sounded colorful without resembling a Quentin Tarantino clone. [8 Oct 1997, p.47]

In his last role, the late Tupac Shakur shows once again that he had considerable natural talent as an actor, and while Jim Belushi is always in danger of sliding from sleaze into shtick, he always pulls back. Read full review

Although Belushi's scruffy charm has its moments, it's the late Shakur's performance as the conscience-stricken half of the duo that draws the most attention. There's a gravity to his performance that is totally unexpected, a surprise that -- given the circumstances -- is as sad as it is welcome. Read full review

Writer/director Jim Kouf certainly knows his police procedures, packing the movie with sharp dialogue and authentic set pieces. Unfortunately, the final half-hour, with its told-you-so conclusion, takes the knife-edge away from what clearly could have been a masterly thriller. Then again, just watching Tupac ponder death on the big screen is probably all the knife-edge you need. Read full review

A good, complex story unravels in disappointingly over-the-top fashion in "Gang Related." Premise, about two homicide cops caught in a trap of their own making, is a grabber that sustains interest for quite a while, and pic's exploration of the gray area where law enforcement and criminality overlap is intriguingly developed. Read full review

Like its fallen star, Gang Related may not be perfect. But there's a lot going on here, just beneath the surface. [8 Oct 1997]

Despite a vaguely interesting premise - something like a chaos theory of police karma, the two partners precipitating their own downfall via a series of triggered repercussions - this never rises above the functional. Read full review

The schizoid Gang Related is too heavy to be light and too light to be heavy. [8 Oct 1997, p.F3]

If it weren't the late Tupac Shakur's last film, there would be little reason to give a second thought to Jim Kouf's misleadingly titled "Gang Related." (The movie has nothing to do with gangs.) But because it's Shakur's last film, this pedestrian crime yarn must be reckoned a special disappointment. [10 Oct 1997, p.L24]

Shakur and Belushi are badly mismatched. Shakur -- he of the expressive, soulful eyes and vulnerable heart -- was evolving toward greatness on film. Belushi, though, is completely one-dimensional. [8 Oct 1997, p.1C]

Writer-director Kouf often comes up with seemingly sure-fire ideas and then fails to develop them. "Gang Related" takes some chances. But, while trying to shift the moral center and avoid cliches, it keeps floundering and stumbling back into them. Like the accumulating corpses on Divinci and Rodriguez's beat, it seems a victim of greed, confusion, mistaken identity and a mixed-up system that turns good guys bad. [8 Oct 1997, p.1]

Tupac may not have been Denzel Washington as an actor, but he deserved a better sendoff than this film, which, by the time the silly climax rolls around, is barely worthy of Wesley Snipes. [8 Oct 1997, p.D04]

Shakur’s performance get increasingly intriguing as his character becomes disenchanted with his partner’s tactics, but Belushi is in way over his head. Read full review

Two-parts entertainment to one-part frustration, Jim Kouf's Gang Related is like a diver who leaps promisingly into a triple twist - - only to smack his head against the board on the way back down. Read full review

Best described as not too bad. Much of the time, though, it's pretty terrible. Read full review

Faced with an ungainly scenario in which vigilante cops go from bad to worse and involving far too many twists and surprise revelations to sustain credibility, the viewer has little interest in the fates of cold-blooded but vaguely idealistic killers in writer-director Jim Kouf's murky, overlong "Gang Related." [6 Oct 1997]

Belushi certainly proves that he can play an uncharismatic lout with conviction, but the talented Shakur is — literally — wasted in his final screen performance. Read full review

A mess of a movie, veering constantly toward the laughable when it isn't being offensive. Its only claim to fame is that it's the last movie featuring the late Tupac Shakur. Read full review

While this movie was somehow able to attract solid talent, Jones, Quaid and even character actor David Peymer have too little to work with. Shakur deserved a better memorial, and the other actors deserved a better script. [8 Oct 1997, p.40]

Gang Related is a failed attempt at a kind of hip, post-Tarantino, black-comedy, crime drama. [10 Oct 1997, p.C7]

Gang Related is a preposterously overplotted tale of two police detectives with moral compasses so defective that they have buried their brains and consciences along with 10 of their murder victims long before the film even begins. Read full review

"Implausible" is a mild word for the shenanigans Gang Related expects us to swallow. Writer-director Jim Kouf has loaded a lifetime's worth of ploys and contrivances, feints and jabs, into this unpleasant, interminable, more-than-usually pointless film. [8 Oct 1997, p.F4]