'21 Bridges'

Sometimes a police thriller can be violent, loud, dumb and fun — or, in the case of “21 Bridges,” it can be larded on with such self-importance that it’s just violent, loud and dumb.

Chadwick Boseman, the go-to actor for playing black superheroes (Black Panther, Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, James Brown, etc.), stars as Andre Davis, an NYPD detective with a reputation for shooting first and justifying his actions later. To some, that makes him the perfect guy to investigate a horrific crime: The shooting of eight cops at a Brooklyn restaurant that was also a depot for cocaine trafficking.

The script, by Adam Mervis and Matthew Michael Carnahan, starts by showing us these cop killings from the side of the killers. They are Ray (Taylor Kitsch), a veteran who served in Afghanistan, and Michael (Stephan James, from “If Beale Street Could Talk”), the brother of Ray’s deceased Army buddy. They were planning to haul away 30 kilos of cocaine and were surprised when they found 300 kilos at the restaurant — and when things go bad, they drive over the bridge into Manhattan.

Davis arrives at the crime scene with tempers already on edge. Capt. McKenna (J.K. Simmons), from in whose precinct the deceased cops worked, vows to give Andre all the manpower he needs, and partners him with a narcotics detective, Frankie Burns (Sienna Miller). Davis drops a bombshell order: Close all 21 bridges leading in and out of Manhattan, as well as the tunnels, ferry terminals and subway lines that go off the island. 

The audience is well ahead of Davis here, because the script and director Brian Kirk lay everything out in such a ham-handed way. There’s a moment where a character walks in, and you’d half expect the character to say, “Hi, I’ll be your dirty cop this evening. Have you had a chance to look at the menu?” Things are that obvious.

Things are also incredibly violent. The body count extends far past the eight officers gunned down in Brooklyn, and Kirk seems to wallow in the ferocious gunplay and bloodshed, as the movie lumbers toward a finale that’s equal parts preposterous and predictable. By the finale, though, those bridges are open and we in the audience can make a grateful escape.

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’21 Bridges’

★1/2

Opens Friday, November 22, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for violence and language throughout. Running time: 99 minutes.