21 BRIDGES (2019), the new cop thriller starring Chadwick Boseman, is a classic example of what happens when a screenplay doesn’t get as down and dirty as it should but remains painfully superficial instead.

Andre Davis (Chadwick Boseman [BLACK PANTHER {2018}]) is a cop with a reputation: he shoots first and asks questions later. Yup, he obviously went to the Dirty Harry school for police officers. When a drug theft goes awry, and the two thieves Michael (Stephan James) and Ray (Taylor Kitsch) find themselves surrounded by police officers, they engage in a fierce gun battle which leaves multiple officers dead while they escape into the night.

When Detective Davis arrives on the scene, Captain McKenna (J.K.Simmons) tells him point-blank that he’s the right man for the job, that they want these guys dead, not captured to stand trial and get off on technicalities. Ah, the dreaded technicalities which show up in every badly written police drama.

Anyway, Davis makes the bold decision to shut down the twenty-one bridges going in and out of Manhattan, in effect locking down the island until he can nab the two bad guys. Hence, the name of the movie, and its plot.

Of course, as Davis closes in on his prey, he learns that there’s more going on here, and that it involves police corruption, a plot point that is so blatantly obvious that even Inspector Clouseau would figure it out.

The plot is pretty bad. For instance, for a guy who is supposed to be trigger happy, Davis is the most conscientious cop in the film. It’s everyone else who shoots first and asks questions later, because they’re all corrupt. And it’s one of those films where nearly every one but Davis is involved in the conspiracy.

I really like Chadwick Boseman, and in fact he’s the reason I went out and saw 21 BRIDGES, and he’s fine here, but he’s stuck in a cliché role that doesn’t do him in any favors. Had the writing been stronger, it could have been the type of role that Denzel Washington would have played twenty years ago, or Al Pacino in the early 70s. But in Pacino’s case, the films he made in the 70s like SERPICO (1973) captured the grit and authentic feel of the time. There’s little that’s authentic about 21 BRIDGES.

Stephan James has a few good moments as Michael, a thief with a good head on his shoulders, but like everyone else in the film, his character is swallowed up by the weak screenplay. Taylor Kitsch is largely wasted as Michael’s fellow thief and mentor Ray.

Everything J. K. Simmons says as Captain McKenna is a cliché. Sienna Miller plays narcotics officer Frankie Burns, a character whose motivations are as believable as the rest of the film, which is to say, they’re not.

As you can tell, I did not like the screenplay by Adam Mervis and Matthew Michael Carnahan. Both the story and dialogue are cliché, offering nothing we haven’t seen before in other cop movies of this type. It also makes little effort to make the story it’s trying to tell believable. I didn’t believe any of it.

Director Brian Kirk offers little help. While the film certainly looks polished, it’s not gritty enough for a New York City police thriller. Plus there’s nary a memorable moment to be found.

What 21 BRIDGES does offer is solid acting, especially by Boseman and Stephan James, but neither one is strong enough to lift the mediocre material to a level where this film becomes recommended viewing.

21 BRIDGES is a largely forgettable entry in the canon of good cop vs. corrupt cop movies.

Dust off an old Dirty Harry flick instead.

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