A short distance to travel for a good flick!
?This movie is a prime example of a big-time Hollywood director making the most out of the plentiful resources made available by most major studios.
Did you know the average budget on high profile projects is $80 million!
Donner is the man behind such hits as Superman the movie, The Goonies and Lethal Weapon, just to name a few, and with such an impressive track record we cinema nuts only expect the best from him.
He delivers yet again with 16 Blocks. Bruce Willis plays detective Jack Mosley, a haggard, booze-addled cop who seems upon first impression to be a little disenchanted with life. After an evening on the graveyard shift, Mosley is given an assignment while preparing to go home from a long night. He needs to transport a witness 16 blocks to the courthouse before the jury’s tenure expires, which in the film is about 118 minutes.
The assignment seems easy enough, but what they don’t tell him is the witness, played by Mos Def, is testifying against a group of crooked cops.
It’s not too long after departing from picking up his reluctant passenger that pretty much all hell breaks loose on the streets of New York. It seems the cops in jeopardy of going down have caught wise to Eddie’s (Mos Def) transfer, and will stop at nothing to make sure that he doesn’t testify or talk to anyone ever again.
The leader of the bad cops, played desperately by David Morse, is Frank Nugent (no relation to Ted!), Mosley’s former partner, which makes for a great, although rehashed, story twist.
The film, besides a few moments in the beginning and end, seemingly plays out in real time, so the pacing is pretty quick, and Donner did an amazing job creating the feel of an overcrowded and dense downtown New York.
Very slick visually, but still dirty enough to not look too polished. It is violent, but not offensively and the acting is top notch.
I am more impressed with Mos Def every day. In the age of every musician wanting to be an actor and vice versa, Def has shown the most promise out of all of them as someone who actually acts, has any kind of range, picks diverse projects, and doesn’t portray the same persona on screen as he does in his other profession, and that’s what I want to see.
I think most of the musician turned actors missed the memo: Just because you are good at one thing does not mean you are good at everything.
Mos Def is the exception and not the rule, and I look forward to whatever he does next.
The core of 16 Blocks deals with the age old question of whether or not people can change or not, and morality becomes a key ingredient for the main characters’ metamorphosis.
Willis’ journey is a rough one, and I was more than willing to go along with him, I mean come on, how can you not like Bruce!
I almost give this movie my highest possible recommendation, I found it thoroughly entertaining from start to finish and can’t really think of anything negative to say about it. Everyone involved did their job very well and considering that there are so many remakes out there, it’s good to see that there are still a few somewhat original scripts still being made into films these days, especially the big popcorn movies.
