Caught in the Crossfire wastes no time getting down to business, careening into a deadly firefight in the first five minutes. The jumpy editing of the opening scene matches the tense uncertainty of the nocturnal shootout on a dead end street between cops and gangstas, with many unseen cartridges clanking on the asphalt.
Directed by Brian A. Miller and out now on Blu-ray and DVD, Caught in the Crossfire (2009) is a true heir to 1950s film noir. Dialogue is terse and economical, the mood is sullen, the time of day is usually night—or unknown from within windowless rooms. The plot hinges on the murder of an undercover cop and the desperate bid by a pair of detectives (Chris Klein, Adam Rodriguez) to track the killer. Naturally things go wrong. Seriously wrong.
Much of Caught in the Crossfire is structured around the crisscrossing, separate interviews of the two detectives by internal affairs, the exchange setting off flashbacks that work toward the conclusion of a story caught in a web of corruption. Caught in the Crossfire also stars rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.
