.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

The saying goes that you can count on two things in life: Death and taxes.
Well, let me offer a third option to the popular adage. There are three certainties in life: Death, taxes and the knowledge that Bruce Willis will play a cop in a movie that stacks him against all odds but eventually has him coming out the unequivocal victor.

To back my theory, see Hostage, Sin City, Die Hard (1 through 3), Striking Distance, The Last Boy Scout (ok, he didn't play a cop in that one, but it was close) and Mercury Rising. Each film had our reluctant hero fighting the forces of evil while fighting back his own internal demons.

Well, the former Mr. Demi Moore is back in our local theatres with the new Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon series) vehicle, 16 Blocks. And guess what? Willis plays a cop (Jack Mosley) that is assigned to escort a witness (Mos Def) to the courthouse whose testimony will bring to an end the long careers of many men in blue. The only thing standing in the way are 16 New York City blocks and what seems to be the entire police force which are willing to consider Mosley collateral damage as long as the witness never makes it court in the two hours allotted to the plot.

Along his journey, Mosley will confront his partner of 20 years, take a bus and its passengers hostage, put hundreds of residents of the city in peril for his own personal redemption, and oh yeah, he shoots a cop or two probably just to ensure the movie gets a PG-13 rating.

What surprised me with 16 Blocks is that there were no surprises, and for that, I shouldn't have been surprised. Now follow the bouncing ball on this one. For some reason this side of Jessica Simpson being a star, I thought that since Donner and Willis had done this movie genre over and over and over again, that these two must have seen something interesting in the script in order to sign on for something that is more routine than the local bus schedule. Nope. Notta chance. In fact, as the movie progressed, I could have sat and pulled a Mystery Science Theatre on the developments as there was not even one surprise in the entire film (well, maybe one quick one that was there for comedic support and not for plot development). Every cliché was accounted for in full including the hidden recorder and the misrepresentation and consequences of someone reaching into their pocket for what is not a gun.

So, if the director and main star's only envelope pushing will be the one that they pass to the bank teller when cashing in their cheque for the film, you hope that either the action sequences or the supporting staff pick it up a notch to keep our interest.

Nope. 16 Blocks fails there too. David Morse as former partner Frank Nugent does a great job as Mosley's nemesis, but he brought nothing new to the table and did the same character in The Negotiator back in 1998. Then there is Mos Def as the witness who is supposed to hold the key to all the violence that ensues. As Eddie Bunker, Def is so irritating that he makes me yearn to listen to Adam Sandler whine for two hours while having someone run their nails down a chalkboard than have to hear Def's squeaky voice talk incessantly about become a baker.

And that just leaves the action scenes to criticize. Sure they were ok, but how many times have we seen them before. The bus scene, see The Siege. The cops after other cops, see The Negotiator. And trying to get a witness somewhere while the whole world seems to be coming at you with bigger bullets, see Midnight Run.

In fact, I recommend seeing all three of those films. Sure, you can travel to the theatre to see Willis put on a good performance (thus the two stars), but why not travel less than 16 blocks to your local video store and pick up the same thing with different actors.