'16 Blocks' is a lean, mean ride on the road to redemption

Friday, March 3, 2006

By SEAN AXMAKER
SPECIAL TO THE P-I

"Lethal Weapon" series director Richard Donner and wisecracking action-movie icon Bruce Willis shift down from the high-octane crime film spectacles that made their reputations for a thriller steeped in mortality and redemption. And lots of guns.

MOVIE REVIEW

16 BLOCKS

DIRECTOR: Richard Donner

CAST: Bruce Willis, Mos Def, David Morse, Jenna Stern

RUNNING TIME: 101 minutes

RATING: PG-13 for violence, intense sequences of action and some strong language

GRADE: B-

LINKS/TRAILERS
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Willis plays NYPD burnout Jack Mosley, a detective shuffling through his job with equal parts apathy and inebriation. At the end of a long night shift, he's handed the "nothing job" of escorting small-time loser Eddie Bunker (Mos Def) from lock-up to courthouse.

The loquacious Eddie actually is the star witness in a grand jury indictment against a corrupt cop that, apparently, could reverberate all the way up the chain of command. And sleepwalking Jack is the patsy in a conspiracy of fatal witness tampering led by his patronizing former partner (David Morse), a coolly duplicitous cop with a Mephistophelian air.

It's hardly a new story and Richard Wenk's script doesn't add much to the redemptive drama as Jack is roused from his moral coma and takes on what seems like the entire police force to get his man to the court alive by his 118-minute deadline.

The lean plotting, however, discards the cute twists and physics-defying superhuman feats that pepper so many American action films for a more down-to-earth drama. The real-time countdown provides tension and momentum and the physical repercussions of each violent collision gives it a semblance of credibility.

Willis is a long way from "Die Hard" here, playing the very vulnerable Jack with desperate determination and a panic barely held in check. And if Willis and Def lack buddy-bonding chemistry, they also discard the cliche of comic friction.

"16 Blocks" never quite transcends its origins as a high-concept action thriller, but the clean professionalism of Donner's direction, the low-key turn by Willis and the street-level heroics make it a satisfying piece of genre filmmaking.