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Film Review by Kam Williams

Jack Mosley (Bruce Willis) is an aging, depressed detective with a drinking problem. Eddie Bunker (Mos Def) is a trash-talking, petty criminal with marbles in his mouth who has spent about half of his life mumbling to himself behind bars while dreaming about opening his own bakery. So, with nothing in common, there’s not much reason for the grizzled NYPD veteran and the career perp to expect to meet, let alone land on the same side of the law.

Yet, that’s what happens when Jack is ordered to escort Eddie from jail to the courthouse just 16 blocks away in lower Manhattan. What should have amounted to an uneventful, brief car ride turns into a thrill-a-minute chase after the alcoholic decides to make a brief detour to a liquor store. For he emerges from the establishment only to find a hit man with a gun cocked at the head of his prisoner.

Jack shoots the assassin first, jumps in the driver’s seat and starts careening across Chinatown pumping Eddie with questions to learn why anybody might want him dead. Turns out he’s scheduled to testify in less than two hours in a case against a half-dozen crooked cops.

Next, when Jack calls for backup, his former partner, Frank (David Morse), makes it clear that the entire Department wants this key prosecution witness wasted. Jack must decide what to do.

His choice means he and his charge must run a gauntlet of the most corrupt, immoral and bloodthirsty officers imaginable. The splatter which ensues in the ensuing escape is the essence of 16 Blocks, a high-impact action flick from directed by Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon 1, 2, 3, & 4).

Ordinarily, the success or failure of a claustrophobic, odd-couple caper like this turns on the chemistry between the leads that have to spend the entire picture on top of each other. However, this flick’s pressurized plotline is simply too urgent to allow for much in the way of downtime for the two to develop any intimacy. Nonetheless, both Bruce Willis and Mos Def, though playing simplistically-drawn, almost cartoonish archetypes, manage to enhance their slight characters with enough endearing qualities and offbeat idiosyncrasies to sway the audience to empathize with their plight.

Meanwhile, like your typical computer game, wave after wave of ghoulish adversaries arrive to be eluded, dealt with, or dispatched, soulless demons devoid of a conscience. Pound-for-pound, 16 Blocks provides the most pressure-cooked pyrotechnics, fisticuffs, gunplay, car crashes, back alley dashes and fire escape leaps ever crammed into a cinematic chase lasting less than a mile.

Excellent (3.5 stars)

Rated PG-13 for violence, profanity, and intense action.

Running time: 105 minutes

Studio: Warner Brothers