March 6, 2006
 
RUTHERFORD ON FILM: ’16 Blocks’ Pairs Willis, Mos Def on Big Apple Obstacle Course to Federal Grand Jury
 
By Tony Rutherford
Huntington News Network Writer
 
Huntington, WV (HNN) -An ex-partner tells Jack Mosley (Bruce Willis), "I didn't think I'd be trading 9mm bullets with you today!"
 
I did not think I'd be penning an almost rave review for a story about some of New York's worst. But I am. From its opening frame, "16 Blocks" in Manhattan might as well be Baghdad, the mountains of Afghanistan, or at the height of a Nor’easter blizzard.
 
Willis plays a flunky detective who has been given an overtime assignment of delivering Eddie Bunker (Mos Def), a small-time crook, to the courthouse to testify. What Willis does not know is that Bunker plans to rogue cops who crossed the line under the pretense of closing cases.
 
Aside from the stretching luck and skill necessary to keep tracking the two over the heavily crowded sidewalks of Canal and Chinatown, the search adds underground NYC and dark, dank ventures into unassuming structures. Arguably the best sequence has the two hijacking a bus and convincing the hapless riders of their predicament as the SWAT squads more in for the squeeze.
 
Unlike Harrison Ford who played an aging bank security director in "Firewall," Willis' burnt out, don't touch anything till you are relieved flunky detective with a bum leg still has attitude and physical zest, even though his drinking put him in force’s doghouse. While physically huffing and puffing, Willis gives the character a quickly tuned brain which matches him against an ensemble of 'dirty' cops in a terse game of procedurally outwitting more and more bad men in blue.
 
Mos Def glues this fast paced thriller by providing a light-weight, babbling personality with a nervous, nasal vocal flair that draws audience empathy. His hyper zeal at testifying, grabbing cash from a locker and traveling to Seattle to open a bakery finalizes his 'new start,' about which Willis challenges and taunts. Def’s jittery, nasal and fast rapping speech creates a memorable, likable character
 
Hardly a “Lethal” buddy genre yet not a heavily moralistic and gritty “Serpico,” Director Richard Donner (“Superman”) chooses a middle ground which accents “High Noon” gun slinging, SWAT entries, and cruiser demolition.
 
Donner populates the sixteen block obstacle course with a diversity of indifferent individuals who overlook the life or death foot race. His frame composition swings from inclusion of the obscure claustrophobic street life to a glimpse at basement laundry filled with likely undocumented aliens (and a convenient dumbwaiter) to an isolated alley which provides conveniently unlocked access to friendly structures to Willis and Def.
 
The film’s odd imperfections rest in that “suspension of disbelief” realm, where its hybrid reality occasionally tumbles forcing viewers to question coincidence as the men battle cops, themselves, and the streets. However, it firmly deploys the loyalty of officers to each other which can result in justice miscarriages in the name of protecting buddies. Donner prefers to add the moral implications as occasional pepper to otherwise intricate, well staged perils of Jack and Eddie along the golden trail to the federal courthouse. For that matter, Jack questions Eddie’s own vows to ‘go straight’ after a life of petty crime. So, both the good guys and the bad guys have big gashes of gray and black in their personalities.