Keanu Reeves & Chris Evans’ $66M Forgotten Action Movie Returns as a Streaming Hit Despite 37% RT Score

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The action movie Street Kings, released in 2008 with a famous cast, didn’t make much of an impact in theaters and was quickly forgotten. However, almost twenty years later, it’s unexpectedly become popular again, with more people watching it now.

You can currently stream Street Kings on Starz, where it’s currently ranked as the fifth most popular movie in the U.S. (according to FlixPatrol). This is great news for the film, which came out 19 years ago and earned over $66 million in theaters, despite receiving mixed reviews and a 37% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Keanu Reeves Leads the Cast of Street Kings

The action thriller Street Kings featured a team of writers including James Ellroy, Kurt Wimmer, and Jamie Moss. The film starred Keanu Reeves (known for John Wick), Chris Evans (Avengers: Doomsday), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Hugh Laurie (House), Common (Hell on Wheels), The Game (Waist Deep), Terry Crews (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Naomie Harris (No Time to Die), and Cedric the Entertainer (The Neighborhood).

I recently watched this movie and it really pulled me in. Keanu Reeves plays a detective named Tom Ludlow, and he’s dealing with a lot – he lost his wife and is still really hurting. Things get even worse when his old partner turns up dead, and the evidence points to him! So, he has to go on this intense journey to find the real killers and prove he’s innocent. What starts as a personal quest quickly spirals into something much bigger – a deep-rooted corruption within the police department itself. It’s a classic story of betrayal, where you start to wonder who you can even trust, especially those closest to you.

Reeves’ Tom Ludlow Went Off the Rails

The actor plays a man dealing with the death of his wife, and that sadness is visible throughout the film. Director David Ayer has said they developed a detailed backstory for the character: he was once a hopeful and optimistic police officer. We imagined his father losing his job at a car plant in the 1980s, and that the character himself was a high school athlete who then worked a series of unremarkable jobs before joining the LAPD.

He discovered a talent and a sense of belonging, and people began to appreciate him. However, things eventually went wrong as he was taken advantage of. It’s important to remember that no one initially sets out to be a villain.

A sequel to the movie was released directly to DVD in 2011 as Street Kings 2: Motor City. While Chris Fisher directed, only Clifton Powell, known from Ray, returned from the original cast. The film also featured actors from Goodfellas and Shawn Hatosy (The Pitt). This sequel shifted the setting from Los Angeles to Detroit and continued to explore issues of police corruption.

Street Kings is streaming on Starz.

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2026-06-06 02:28