16 BLOCKS

"Days change, seasons change, people don't change."

Bruce Willis is good at playing cops, assasins, government agents, and most other jobs requiring guns. He’s really been playing the same part with slight modifications ever since Die Hard came out in 1988 and won him universal praise. Honestly, that’s why I didn’t mind too much that 16 Blocks was just another completely generic cop film with a few twists and turns thrown in the mix.

Willis actually shakes up his gig this time around, playing alcoholic cop Jack Mosley, who has a gimpy leg and no friends, save for his ex-partner Frank Nugent (David Morse). Mosley is thrown a relatively meaningless task of transporting street-hustler Eddie Bunker (a pretty damn annoying Mos Def, who sports a whiny tone that did nothing for the character or for me) 16 blocks to the courthouse for hearing. Things of course go wrong though, when Mosley stops at a corner shop to buy a bottle and walks out to see a gun being pointed in his boy’s face. He does what every one of his characters would have done, kills the bad guy, grabs the boy, and runs for cover (that may be something new actually).

Things start getting even worse when Frank, who we know as Jack’s ex-partner, reveals that he is in on it. “A lot of bad will come out of this if the kid lives” he reasons with Jack. Although this movie is about crooked cops and what they can do, it never gets dark enough to be great, and is never happy enough to really be enjoyable.

Jack and Eddie take off, trying desperately to just make it to the courthouse sanctuary. They have to stay off the police scanner because really, who knows who else is in on the action? It occured (a lot) that they could have grabbed a cab and suffered the few dollars it costs instead of vying for the nine-millimeter-exchanges, but then I guess the 100-minute running time would have to be cut down even more. It is interesting how the time actually is passed. This is no doubt an action movie, but it spends more time than I would have predicted it would in investigating the lives and backgrounds of Jack and Eddie. This really isn’t the same old cop role for Willis, who has gained weight and has the face of an alcoholic in this; dark, sad, and with empty eyes miserably searching for the next bottle to drink. Eddie has been convicted before but knows he is innocent in this instance, and promises to use this turn of events as a reason to live a better life.

While this approach, of spending more time than the basic cop movie exploring the characters, is admirable, it really isn’t good. The background stories are dull and really come at the wrong times, and impair the timing of the action sequences. Because of this, as well as the story not involving enough darkness or meaning to hit hard, the film lacks a point. It doesn’t hurt to watch Bruce Willis in another action flick though.

C