16 Blocks Review

Going in to see 16 Blocks, I didnâ??t really know what to expect. On the one hand you have Bruce Willis, who has a decent body of work with movies like Sin City, Unbreakable, and the 6^th Sense. On the other hand, you have Bruce Willis who has an equally brutal body of work, including Hostage, The Whole Ten Yards, and Tears of the Sun. So, until you find out which Bruce is gonna show up in the movie, the good or the bad, you really have no idea how the movie will turn out as a whole.

Luckily for 16 Blocks, this time, he brings the goodâ?Š

Basically, 16 Blocks is a thriller that steals a page from the TV show 24, as it takes place in a sort of pseudo real time. Bruce Willis plays Jack Mosley, a washed up cop who spends his days drinking away his conscience and basically waiting to die. At the end of a long day, Jack is forced to do one last job by his lieutenant, transport a witness 16 blocks in just under 2 hours for a court appearance. As it turns out, the witness, Eddie Bunker (played by Mos Def), is lined up to testify against some dirty cops, and the people he plans on turning in are not too happy about it. Lead by Jackâ??s former partner, Frank Nugent (played by David Morse), these dirty officers will stop at nothing to ensure that Jack and his witness are unable to make it to court alive.

Thatâ??s basically it for the plot. The movie follows the real-time gimmick for the majority of the film, and for the most part it works out pretty well. Richard Donner does a good job of maintaining the suspense throughout, by slowly increasing the tension from scene to scene. Donner also manages to inject some originality into the film, and doesnâ??t rely on too many tired police officer clich�©s which often tend to pop up in a film like this. In fact, there were a few scenes in the film where I thought I knew what was coming next, but 16 Blocks manages to go another, more interesting way which really makes the movie that much better as a result.