Movies detailing the lives of corrupt, disinterested and/or tempted New York police officers could and probably should constitute their own subgenre Netflix listing, and that’s where Brooklyn’s Finest slots. Those inclined to like this sort of thing — less discriminating fans of Training Day, We Own the Night and Pride and Glory — will find enough about it to like; others will likely shrug.

Unfolding over the course of one chaotic week, the movie centers around three conflicted Big Apple cops whose discrete stories eventually come together in a massive drug sting operation. There’s burned-out veteran Eddie Dugan (Richard Gere), one week away from retirement; narcotics officer and family man Sal Procida (Ethan Hawke), struggling to make ends meet for his seven (!) children and mold-allergic wife (Lili Taylor); and Clarence “Tango” Butler (Don Cheadle), who’s been undercover so long his loyalties might have started to shift from his fellow officers to old friend Caz (Wesley Snipes), a drug dealer just out of prison. With pressures bearing down on them, each man is forced to make some tough decisions that have lasting consequences, both anticipated and unforeseen.

It’s not a grade-A slur to say that Brooklyn’s Finest feels entirely constructed from prefabricated parts, or like the comeback single from an aging, reconstituted band. There’s Fuqua and Hawke, reuniting from Training Day; Snipes, playing a character who could be a cousin of New Jack City‘s Nino Brown, and Cheadle working undercover, as in Traitor. Fuqua shoots the film with much style, naturally, but the plotting here is all strictly by the book — except for Gere’s story strand, actually, which flirts with intrigue in detailing his complicated relationship with a hooker (Tawny Cypress). Unfortunately, audiences can’t dictate which story of the triptych with which to stick, so when the finale ducks headlong into clashing egos and agendas, and a grim standoff involving kidnapped sex trade junkies, they’re all held hostage, along for the ride. (Overture, R, 125 minutes)