Oh, Keanu Reeves, must you continue playing cops? I’d rather you did more Shakespeare, in which you’re actually more believable. But no, after Point Break (I consider FBI agents to be cops) and Speed, you have to go and do Street Kings and try to make us accept you as one of the hardest vice detectives to ever grace the big screen. Want a cookie? Or an Oscar? Even if you do pull off the equivalent of what Ethan Hawke did in Training Day, you’re not going to get the notice of the Academy. The only thing keeping you from being the least likely actor to be taken seriously as a tough undercover officer is the existence of Paul Walker, whose performance in The Fast and the Furious makes you look like Dirty Harry.

Speaking of Training Day and The Fast and the Furious, the screenwriter behind those two movies, David Ayer, is the director of Street Kings. Fortunately, he didn’t write this one. The guys who did write it are L.A. Confidential novelist James Ellroy, who also came up with the original story, Equilibrium writer-director Kurt Wimmer and an apparent newcomer named Jamie Moss. Co-starring in the film, some of whom are sure to make Reeves’ acting appear even worse, are Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans (if you saw Sunshine, you know he’s actually a pretty good actor), Common, Jay Mohr, John Corbett, Cedric the Entertainer, The Game and Naomie Harris. OK, enough ragging on Reeves. But despite the appealing names of Ellroy and Whitaker, this still looks like a generic cops-and-gangstas movie. I’d rather just wait for Keanu as Klaatu later this year.

Street Kings hits theaters April 11.