16 Blocks
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Rated: PG-13
Website: http://www2.warnerbros.com/16blocks/index.html
Release Date: 2006-03-03
Cast: David Zayas, David Sparrow, Bruce Willis, Dante ‘Mos Def’ Smith, David Morse
Director: Richard Donner
Screenwriter: Richard Wenk
WorkNameSort: 16 Blocks
Our Rating: 2.00
In the larcenous tradition of The Island‘s rip of The Clonus Horror, Hollywood again banks on mass-audience amnesia and remakes Clint Eastwood’s The Gauntlet. OK, let’s be fair: 16 Blocks is way different from The Gauntlet. For instance, it takes place in New York, not Phoenix. Anyway, Bruce Willis plays Jack Mosley, a dissolute cop in need of redemption. That comes in the form of a chatty petty-con prisoner (Mos Def) who must be delivered to court in time to reveal what he knows about some shady police doings. In their way is David Morse as a cop who’s, like, totally evil. Ultimately, 16 is a limp, lazy exercise in nostalgia for the buddy genre that director Richard Donner helped define in the ’80s. When, in their big confrontation scene, Morse doesn’t say to Willis, “You know, Jack, we’re more alike than you think,” you’re almost disappointed.
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2006.