It's a taut escapist tale - and not until afterwards do you realize how absurd the concept is with its contrived, clock-ticking deadline.
16 Blocks (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:156
Fresh:87
Rotten:69
Average Rating:5.9/10
Consensus: Despite strong performances from Bruce Willis and Mos Def, 16 Blocks is a shopworn entry in the buddy-action genre.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for violence, intense sequences of action, and some strong language
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:Mar 3, 2006 Wide
Box Office: $36,883,539
Synopsis: All he wanted to do was go home and get a drink. But at 8:02 a.m., hungover NYPD detective Jack Mosley (BRUCE WILLIS) is assigned a seemingly simple task. Petty criminal Eddie Bunker (MOS DEF)... All he wanted to do was go home and get a drink. But at 8:02 a.m., hungover NYPD detective Jack Mosley (BRUCE WILLIS) is assigned a seemingly simple task. Petty criminal Eddie Bunker (MOS DEF) is set to testify before a grand jury at 10:00 a.m. and needs to be taken from lock-up to the courthouse, 16 blocks away. It should take Jack 15 minutes to drop him off at the courthouse and get home. Broken down, out of shape, with a bad leg and a serious drinking problem, Jack's role on the force is simple - clock in, clock out and stay out of trouble in between. He's in no mood to deal with a punk who's been in and out of jail for more than half his life. But beneath the punk in Eddie lies a man committed to turning his life around and constantly searching for "signs" that will lead him to a brighter future. Jack knows better, though - people don't change. In Eddie he sees only a pathetic rat who was offered a sweet deal... a rat he will be rid of soon enough. When Jack shoves Eddie into the back of his car and pulls out into the morning New York city rush hour, he doesn't notice the van looming behind them. His head throbbing, and Eddie's flair for conversation only making it worse, Jack stops off at the local liquor store to pick up some breakfast. As Eddie waits inside the locked car, fuming at getting stuck with Jack as his escort, he's suddenly faced with a much bigger problem - a loaded gun pointed at his head. Jack emerges just in time to prevent Eddie's execution, killing one assassin and narrowly escaping a second. When Jack calls for backup, homicide detective Frank Nugent (DAVID MORSE) and his team are first to arrive at the scene. Eddie suddenly goes pale - one of the detectives on Nugent's team is the man he is supposed to testify against. In an instant, Jack's quickie trip downtown turns into the nightmare of a lifetime: the criminals that want Eddie dead are actually cops. There's a history between Jack and Nugent - a dark history that Jack has been desperately trying to forget. And as Nugent is quick to point out to his old friend, Eddie's testimony threatens to bring them all down. Nugent offers to stage a mock hostage situation in which Eddie is killed and Jack does what he does best - walk away. But this time, Jack has been pushed too far and seizes his last opportunity to do the right thing. A split second before Nugent's team can execute Eddie, Jack sets in motion a chain of events that will irrevocably impact all of their lives. Battling against time and the corrupt cops gaining on their every move, Jack and Eddie fight their way to the courthouse block by gut-wrenching block. These are Jack's streets, too - and he won't go quietly. In Eddie, he finds purpose, hope and the strength to do something he should have done six years ago. And Eddie begins to see that all of the "signs" he's been following were meant to lead him to Jack. It's the story of how two men change - and change each other - during a tense 16 block struggle between life and death. --© Warner Bros. [More]
Starring: Bruce Willis, Mos Def, David Morse, Casey Sander
Starring: Bruce Willis, Mos Def, David Morse, Casey Sander, Cylk Cozart
Director: Richard Donner
Director: Richard Donner
Screenwriter: Richard Wenk
Producer: Jim Van Wyck, Avi Lerner, Randall Emmett, John Thompson, George Furla, Hadeel Reda, Derek Hoffman
Composer: Klaus Badelt
Studio: Warner Bros.
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Reviews for 16 Blocks
Hiding among all the uniforms and bullets, it turns out, is an actors' movie, and two actors more than capable of hitting their marks.
Another urban action thriller that's better than some, worse than most and so forgettable that it's possible to forget it while watching it.
16 Blocks never makes much sense of its crammed geography or gives the actors more than generic options.
Though it aims higher than the average cop thriller, 16 Blocks rarely rises above its far-fetched plot and wham-bang mayhem.
16 Blocks is a police procedural in the change-your-life spirit of Oprah. And I say this with the deepest respect for both genres.
One can turn off one's brain, suspend disbelief, and have one heck of a good time.
The movie is not likely to do much for the image of New York's finest, but it's an improbably entertaining 'B,' elevated by Willis' muted performance as the gone-to-seed cop and Mos Def's unexpectedly comic turn as the chatterbox witness.
[Richard] Donner can direct this sort of thriller in his sleep, but he squanders the movie's sense of urgency for little acting or screen-writing indulgences.
16 Blocks has a sweaty, weary, often intimate feel, with the human aspect dominating the mechanistic.
Getting anywhere in New York gridlock can take forever, especially when you're following Bruce Willis in a cookie-cutter action thriller.
The actors seem to have inspired the hack director Richard Donner and the cat-and-mouse game is much grittier than one would expect from the creator of the Lethal Weapon series.
16 Blocks is the best of this trio [of recent crooked cop movies, including Dirty and Running Scared], thanks to the winning performances of its stars -- a restrained Bruce Willis and a very likable Mos Def.
This noisy, formulaic film turns out to be immediately forgettable, except for the parts that are so ridiculous they leave you shaking your head in wonder hours later.
Mos Def's channelling of Flava Flav is questionable, but entertaining...so is the film.
Unlike the usual dirty cop thriller, 16 Blocks patiently develops into a straightforward drama without useless love interests or improbable twists.
It's a fine B-movie set-up, and for the first 45 minutes or so, [director Richard] Donner keeps things properly nerve-jangling, using a shaky hand-held camera and a cacophony of blaring sounds to put you on edge.
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