16 Blocks

DVD Reviews | Jun 13th, 2006

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Starring Bruce Willis, Mos Def, David Morse, Cylk Cozart, Jenna Stern
Written By: Richard Wenk
Directed By: Richard Donner
Studio: Warner Brothers
Buy on Amazon.com link

Is it just me or is this DVD out way earlier than it should? It seems like DVDs take 2 months to get released now, which is a good thing for some people who never get their butts to the movie theater. But anyway, 16 Blocks stars Bruce Willis as..you guess it, a cop. But this time he’s an old, over the hill cop. Okay, it still sounds like other characters he’s played before. I guess just watch the movie if you like Willis playing cops.

16 Blocks takes place in New York City and Bruce Willis plays detective Jack Mosley. After a long, exhausting day, he’s assigned to escort a petty criminal named Eddie, who’s supposed to testify a few blocks away from the station. Jack can’t take Eddie’s annoying mumbling (neither can I!), so Jack pulls over to get some booze and Advil. When he returns, he’s forced to shoot someone who’s about to shoot Eddie. They flee the crime and hide in some bar. Later on, Jack runs into his ex-partner and realizes he is behind everything since the convict is testifying against Jack’s partner and the other cops. They have to make it to the court house within a few hours or Eddie’s testimony doesn’t mean anything. But they have to do it with the entire police force behind their tails.

While the movie had a lot of exciting parts, I find disappointed by it. To me, it just seemed like I’ve seen this type of movie before and didn’t seem that original in the end. Not sure it was claiming it to be, but I thought they could have done a better job with it. I think the biggest complaint I had with the movie was with Mos Def. I usually enjoy his roles but this time he just drove me freakin’ crazy! I’m sure he was doing that on purpose and trying to be a different character, but it was god damn irritating. He sounded like this character Robert Townsend did in the movie Hollywood Shuffle. It was his stereotypical black guy voice and this time Mos Def does it through the entire movie. He just didn’t shut the hell up in the movie and kept mumbling. I think I would have liked it a little better if his character closed his mouth after awhile. But apparently critics liked his character, go figure.

I did like the twist at the end because I didn’t see it at first. It’s not really a twist, but it’s something I wasn’t expecting. Wait is that the definition of a twist? Ahh forget it haha. But there were a lot of parts I did like in the movie, it just felt like something was missing. I didn’t really know too much about Bruce Willis’ character to give a damn if he died or not, same with Eddie or anyone else in the movie. There wasn’t that much depth to the characters but you know Jack needed to keep Eddie alive. I guess he sensed he was an innocent guy who ended up being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I thought the story was interesting in that a cop is going against other fellow cops within such a small radius. In most situations like that, the people won’t get too far when they have the entire police department after you. I did think Richard Donner did a fair job with this movie, but believe it or not, I liked his previous movie Timeline a lot better. Some people are probably thinking the opposite but I found that movie far more entertaining and exciting than this one.

There are 2 decent extras on this DVD and that’s it. Well there’s a trailer but come on, that doesn’t really count. The first is an alternate ending that’s pretty interesting, but not sure what to think of it. Well I’ll just spoil it since it’s an alternate. Bruce Willis’ character Jack gets shot while David Morse’s character Frank is trying to jump in front of him to not get killed. You think it’s Frank who is dead but it ends up being Jack. Then the tape plays that Jack had and tells the court people everything that Frank said to Jack. I kind of like how Jack ends up dying because the original ending seemed to happy and corny to me. The other extra is a 20 minute feature with director Richard Donner and writer Richard Wenk discuss the deleted scenes. They explain why they were deleted, and even seem to make fun of each & themselves a lot which was amusing. That’s about it as far as bonus material is concerned.

If you like Cop movies with a little bit of corruption, good acting and tense situations than check out 16 Blocks. I was disappointed in the movie for some reason, I guess I just thought this would be better.

Features:
Alternate Ending
Deleted Scenes with Commentary by director Richard Donner and writer Richard Wenk
Theatrical Trailer

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC
FRENCH: Dolby Digital 5.1

Video:
Widescreen 2.40:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:
English, Spanish, French

Favorite Scenes: I liked the scenes on the bus, the beginning when the killers show up at Eddie’s window, the ending was cool too.
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 102 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: