By Daniel Konrad-Cooper

Dirty is a gritty, but gripping urban drama from the crime-gangster genre to which Chris Fisher adds an element of horror to create an engaging style that keeps you permanently on edge. The film’s vibrant heartbeat is supported by an excellent musical score that builds in conjunction with the increasing stakes. The faded tones of the decaying metropolis, within which the tension is built, backdrop a bleak picture of corrupt cops and dirty dealings in a world without order. While the location is not named explicitly, the events echo the 1999 Rampart Scandal that rocked the LAPD.

The film’s action follows a sweltering day in the corruption of two minority cops Officer Sancho (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Officer Adel (Cuba Gooding Jr.). Sancho is ravaged by guilt from a previous incident: what had begun as the framing of a known gang member turned into the murder of an innocent witnessed by a passing homeless bystander. Plagued by the dead man’s haunting image Sancho wants out of the corrupt world into which he is sliding, but his allegiance to his partner leaves him morally compromised. The unit’s self-justifying brutality spins out of control, but on the day they are set to report their top brass to Internal Affairs, they are lured into one final lucrative score.

Robert LaSardo and Gooding Jr. in Chris Fisher's corrupt cop drama.

The two lead performances are engaging to the last, their relationship well-wrought and entertaining. Gooding demonstrates his versatility in a role far flung from the Hollywood-happy Oscar-winning Show-me-the-money role of ten years ago. He portrays Adel as a wannabe-gangster, too cool for his uniform - his name badge adolescently attached upside-down – seizing the day to pursue ambition. His charisma is essential in drawing us into supporting characters who abuse a system we place our trust in every day. Collins’ Sancho is the conscience of the pair and embarrassed by his colleague’s behavior but not prepared to intervene. Their situation becomes increasingly precarious as he is forced to battle against the gang that nurtured him for a police force who don’t distinguish themselves morally from their enemy. As time progresses we empathize further with essentially corrupt personalities, and it is this that highlights the 1st-rate acting.

Taboo’s first on-screen appearance is far from prominent amid a very strong supporting cast. The Black Eyed Pea opens a door at one stage and fulfils the generic rapper-gangster transition, but blink and you’ll miss it. The assorted characters whose paths get caught-up in the proceedings are well-delivered and offer an engaging array of side-plots. Aimee Garcia and Khleo Thomas are especially notable.

Dirty is an excellent film that has its rough surface glazed a little with Hollywood’s commercial sheen. Its hard-hitting edginess is undermined at times as Wyclef Jean’s Jamaican accent is subtitled, and camera experimentation is taken too far in a slow-motion sequence at the movie’s middle. There’s plenty of cliched dialogue too, but the streets abound with pocket-book philosophy and it fits well for the realistic characters to impress with new turns of phrase – "don’t stick your dick in the gift horse’s mouth." The film’s tagline Violence is a language that people understand echoes as true for the cinema-going public as for a battered gangster. Dirty’s cops are so pumped-up on the notion that they’re the good guys that they lose sight of right and wrong, and this subtly raises confrontational questions at an interesting time in world politics.

The atmosphere is great, but the outlook is bleak: Is there anyone left to trust?

Dirty is rated "R" and is currently in limited release.