REVIEWED - 16 BLOCKS: Bruce Willis is fine as a boozy policeman forced to run the gauntlet of murderous colleagues, writes Donald Clarke
FIFTEEN years ago, a coalition between Richard Donner, the man who directed Lethal Weapon, and Bruce Willis, the man who was Bruce Willis, would guarantee carnage fanatics an orgy of irresponsibly deployed ordnance. Both men being now older and wiser, their current collaboration, though nominally within the action genre, turns out to be comparatively restrained and largely character-driven.
It's all there in the title. Willis, a boozy cop with a jutting prosthetic (we hope) belly, is ordered to transport Mos Def's mouthy villain to a courthouse 16 blocks distant from the police station. The crook has, it transpires, evidence against a corrupt officer, whose colleagues on the force are less than happy. After a shoot-out in a bar, Willis, until now a far from exemplary policeman, decides to do the right thing and resist his erstwhile chums' demands that he hand over the grass.
By christening Mos Def's character Eddie Bunker, Donner and his screenwriter, Richard Wenk, are, presumably, gesturing towards the sort of violent crime fiction penned by the rehabilitated ex-con of the same name. In truth, there is barely enough plot in 16 Blocks for the shortest of short stories. Bunker and his protector argue while cops shoot at them. That's about it. But a craggy performance from Willis and a nervy, hugely eccentric one from Mos Def help make the piece extremely watchable.
The picture also features New York location work - the camera follows the heroes out into busy streets as they mingle with real citizens - impressive enough to bear comparison with that in The French Connection.
Mind you, if you began asking questions you'd never stop. Is the entire NYPD corrupt? How come nobody hears that gun go off in a bar on a busy street at lunchtime? Why is Mos Def talking like Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor? Happily, the action is sufficiently gripping to distract the viewer from pondering those mysteries until after he or she leaves the cinema.
