16 Blocks
This is one of those Bruce Willis movies that falls in the above average bracket.
It is true that I am a sucker for Bruce, so there is a chance that I am not really in a position fairly judge his work. In fact very few of his films have left me going 'oh dear why have I bothered watching this' and that is a good thing.
I know very little about Bruce, I am sure his politics are somewhat further right than mine are. I try not to know anything about my heroes and just like them for what I like them for.
In '16 Blocks' Bruce plays Jack Mosley, a run down detective with a limp, a drink problem and who doesn't really care about life any more. He gets given the job of getting a witness, Eddie Bunker, to the grand jury by 10am (later in his career Bruce will do something similiar in Die Hard 4.0).
It turns out that the witness has evidence against some cops and they are not too keen on him making it to the courthouse. This leave Jack in a pickle. The bad cops led by Frank Nugent (played by David Morse - who looks like someone you see all the time in movies but has only been in a few that I have seen) want to see Eddie dead.
Jack can't let that happen. He shoots one of the cops and he and Eddie escape.
Thus begins a chase across the city.
Which includes a hostage situation on a bus - where Jack engineers an escape for Eddie, only to see Eddie return to the bus in order to stop Jack from being killed.
They escape this.
With help from Jack's sister (who we all thought was his ex-wife - from earlier clues) they arrive at the courthouse. Where Jack informs Eddie that he was one of the cops that he was going to inform on, but not to worry because Jack isn't going to do anything bad he is going to testify and Eddie can go get on with his life.
The film ends with Jack out of prison receiving a birthday cake baked by Eddie.
The prolonged ending to the movie is its weakness. From the moment of the bus hosage situation onwards it feels as if it is being padded.
I can't say I am too keen on Mos Def who played Eddie - it is his voice- very annoying.
At the start of the movie when Jack is first driving Eddie across town he parks the car in order to go and get a drink, while he is gone one of the bad cops is going to shoot Eddie. He doesn't get a chance to as he is blown away by Jack. The director, Richard Donner, does a nice 360 around bruce which transforms him from the careworn cop into the heroic cop. Very nicely done.
It has a few great lines in it the best being an exchange where frank says to jack "you can't be lucky all the time." only for Eddie to sneak up behind him to say "but you can be smart every day."
All in all an enjoyable movie. Well made and reasonably well paced. The writer Richard Wenk turns in a decent script/story. The principal actors are all good. The action is well done.
It is worth a look.
IMDB give it 6.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes gives is 55% from critics and 60% from audience.
It deserves a little better than that.
Length 101 Minutes
It is true that I am a sucker for Bruce, so there is a chance that I am not really in a position fairly judge his work. In fact very few of his films have left me going 'oh dear why have I bothered watching this' and that is a good thing.
I know very little about Bruce, I am sure his politics are somewhat further right than mine are. I try not to know anything about my heroes and just like them for what I like them for.
In '16 Blocks' Bruce plays Jack Mosley, a run down detective with a limp, a drink problem and who doesn't really care about life any more. He gets given the job of getting a witness, Eddie Bunker, to the grand jury by 10am (later in his career Bruce will do something similiar in Die Hard 4.0).
It turns out that the witness has evidence against some cops and they are not too keen on him making it to the courthouse. This leave Jack in a pickle. The bad cops led by Frank Nugent (played by David Morse - who looks like someone you see all the time in movies but has only been in a few that I have seen) want to see Eddie dead.
Jack can't let that happen. He shoots one of the cops and he and Eddie escape.
Thus begins a chase across the city.
Which includes a hostage situation on a bus - where Jack engineers an escape for Eddie, only to see Eddie return to the bus in order to stop Jack from being killed.
They escape this.
With help from Jack's sister (who we all thought was his ex-wife - from earlier clues) they arrive at the courthouse. Where Jack informs Eddie that he was one of the cops that he was going to inform on, but not to worry because Jack isn't going to do anything bad he is going to testify and Eddie can go get on with his life.
The film ends with Jack out of prison receiving a birthday cake baked by Eddie.
The prolonged ending to the movie is its weakness. From the moment of the bus hosage situation onwards it feels as if it is being padded.
I can't say I am too keen on Mos Def who played Eddie - it is his voice- very annoying.
At the start of the movie when Jack is first driving Eddie across town he parks the car in order to go and get a drink, while he is gone one of the bad cops is going to shoot Eddie. He doesn't get a chance to as he is blown away by Jack. The director, Richard Donner, does a nice 360 around bruce which transforms him from the careworn cop into the heroic cop. Very nicely done.
It has a few great lines in it the best being an exchange where frank says to jack "you can't be lucky all the time." only for Eddie to sneak up behind him to say "but you can be smart every day."
All in all an enjoyable movie. Well made and reasonably well paced. The writer Richard Wenk turns in a decent script/story. The principal actors are all good. The action is well done.
It is worth a look.
IMDB give it 6.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes gives is 55% from critics and 60% from audience.
It deserves a little better than that.
Richard Donner
Richard WenkLength 101 Minutes
April 2006
posted by pat at 3:45 PM
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