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Review: In the Line of Duty

Time for a police drama. I've been watching a lot of Criminal Minds recently (Awesome Cupcake noticed that it was on Amazon Prime and finished on February 29th and she wanted to do an epic binge watch...I had to too, it's an epic series) so when I had this movie given to me for review I thought this was going to be great fun to have a look at, so let's check out In the Line of Duty (aka Live! or Line of Duty).

In this real-time thriller, disgraced cop Frank Penny is on a rogue mission of redemption to find the 11-year-old daughter of the chief of police who has been abducted and her life is on the line.

With Penny being up against up against-the-clock and the girl's chances of survival already being incredibly slim, Penny makes the potentially fatal error of shooting the psychotic dead and now they have no leads to the location of the girl.

Accompanied by an ambitious vlogger reporter who is streaming every move made during his desperate search for this girl and a city watches, pandemonium ensues when the kidnapper's enraged brother arrives on the scene and he has nothing but a bloody thirst for revenge for his fallen brother on his mind...



Now, I have to say now, as much as I enjoyed this movie there are a few things I have to address before I go any further...

Firstly, Penny runs. A lot. Now, I know this does not sound like a bad thing in general, I mean police officers do this, they need to run after criminals to catch them, that makes a lot of sense...but, the tunning that is done here does not, I'm sorry but no matter how much cardio you do you would have to take a breather, and you would not seem fresh as a daisy! You are not superhuman, Penny.

Secondly, the car...ah yes. Ava says her Fiat 500 is zero emissions so it is a 500e, however when the 500e flips over after avoiding the truck, it reveals an exhaust pipe. The 500e is electric and doesn't have an exhaust pipe.

Finally, when Officer Penny breaks the driver's side window on the suspect's car, the window breaks like regular old plate glass. Car side windows use tempered glass, so when broken they don't create large jagged sharp pieces that can easily cut and injure occupants/pedestrians, but rather they break up into thousands of tiny cubes and are far less likely to cause serious cuts and abrasions. Tempered glass is also a lot harder than plate glass.


Now I've got that out the way, I have to say I really did enjoy this movie. Sure those facts just seemed to irk me a little, but if you suspend belief a little and just believe in the magic of the movies it's really not that bad. Eckhart plays Penny well, although to be fair the one thing I have noticed about him is that when he plays a role he truly he throws himself into to, so he was the quintessential disgraced cop, but one desperate for redemption too (also one there for the kids too).


All in all, I'd say it was worth a watch. Nice little real-time action film.


In the Line of Duty is rated 15 and available on DVD and Digital Download


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