Action film “Street Kings,” due in theaters this week, marks Keanu Reeves’ return to the big screen after 2006’s melancholy romance “The Lake House.” There will be no sniffling this time, as the actor portrays a harsh police officer hunting the hoodlums on the streets and hunted in turn by his own demons.

The Fox Searchlight Pictures crime drama, opening April 11, is directed by David Ayer (“Harsh Times”) from a screenplay by James Ellroy, Kurt Wimmer and Jamie Moss. The film was initially titled “The Night Watchman” and then renamed.

Reeves stars as veteran Los Angeles cop Tom Ludlow, a man who has lost his wife and with her the meaning of his life. The plot thickens when he is falsely implicated in the death of a fellow officer and he finds he must prove his innocence and discover who it is that is trying to destroy him.

Hugh Laurie (“Dr. House”) and Forest Whitaker (“The Last King of Scotland”) co-star as his superiors, while Chris Evans appears as the detective searching for the assassinated officer’s killers. The cast also includes Terry Crews, Common, Jay Mohr, The Game, Naomie Harris and Martha Higareda.

The Hollywood Reporter is anticipating box office success for the film, noting that it offers “one of Reeves’ best performances: concentrated, grave, a little sad and more than a little demented,” while the best about “Street Kings” is the “fast action combined with rock-solid characters.”

Ayer has previously penned the script for “Harsh Times,” “S.W.A.T.” and “Training Day” and made his directorial debut with “Harsh Times,” a drama starring Christian Bale and Freddy Rodríguez.

Reeves last graced the big screen in “The Lake House,” alongside Sandra Bullock. His recent credits include the acclaimed “The Matrix” trilogy, the dark thriller “Constantine” and the animated “A Scanner Darkly.”

He next appears in “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” a science fiction film directed by Scott Derrickson and co-starring Jennifer Connelly and Kathy Bates. The       20th Century Fox project is slated for a December 2008 release.