Due to coursework and Christmas I ain't gonna be on here too much for a while
Due to coursework and Christmas I ain't gonna be on here too much for a while
Member since:07.04.2007
Reviews:152
Members who trust:92
So I was bored the other day, I don't know if anyone on Ciao is from Belfast but does anyone actually like Victoria Square? I was getting a lift home from uni for Easter and my mum felt compelled to go and have a look. I wondered around bored for awhile then decided to gothinking about going to get something to eatand then walked past noticing HMV had a sale on. With only £5 to my name I didn't think I should go in, but I couldn't help it. 16 Blocks caught my eye and thus I starved in its name.
The Story
The film starts at a crime scene, some latin gangsters have been murdered and the police officer in charge wants to get an "unimportant" officer to cover the crime scene, an aged out of shape Bruce Willis walks in with a newspaper and plants himself on a seat and takes out a hip flask of whiskey. He plays a charcter called Jack Moseley, an old tired police officer who complains that life is too long and it seems has an awful lot on his mind.
We later meet him again at the police station were before clocking off he asked to do one last 'easy' job: bringing a petty criminal from jail to the court house to deliever his testimoney, just
the shortdistance of 16 blocks. Here we meet Eddie Bunker, played by Mos Def, that might mean alot to some hiphop fans, I didn't know of him until this film. His charcter is so annoying at first he is really hard to make out with his weird cartoon charcter chatty voice. You get used to it after a while sort of but it is annoying and it would have been better if they had a character you could understand.
So Jack and Eddy are on their way but traffic slows them down and Jack is irritated and sick of listening to Eddy going on (as I was as well). He parks the car and goes in to the off-license to buy himself a drink. Eddy gets nervous at being left alone and whilst Jack is in the shop a guy approaches the carand after Eddy refuses to open the door as he's hand cuffed the guy takes out a gun but Jack arrives just in time. More 'baddies' arrive and Jack takes Eddy to a bar he knows through the back entrance and calls for back up.
Frank Nugent (David Morse) arrives with a couple of other cops and act a little dodgy.Eddy seems scared of one of them in particular and they tell Jack he's done his job and he can walk away now. Jack has caught on something is up and it turns out that Eddy is giving testimony against these police men. They try to convince Jack to walk away and testify that Eddy was shot in cross fire but Jack refuses and shoots one of them and runs out with Eddy.
The film carries on with Eddy and Jack running away trying to get to the court before 10:00 when the juries tenure runs out. There is alot of action with Eddy and Jack narrowly escaping capture and death a couple of times. They even manages to hijack a bus and then be under seige in the bus after it crashes. The ending I will not spoil but it is unexpected and a really great ending to film I think.
The character progression is fantastic, annoying as Eddy's character is at first you grow to like him as he unveils truths about himself and his great dream. All the police keep telling Jack that Eddy can't change,he's a criminal and always will be a criminal, but Eddy insists his crime days are over. Whilst in jail his cellmate wanted a brithday cake for his daughter when she visited so as prison chef Eddy knocked one up and ended up doing it regularly, he has big dreams of opening a bakery in Seattle and all throughout the film he tells people about his dream and about there are references to how people can change. He is a very likeable charcter despite his lack of elocution.
Willis is very good at portraying the old tired policeman as Willis is an old man despute his denial. The charcter I was most impressed with was David Morse's character, I've never seen him play a villain before and always associate him with the friendly prison officer in The Green Mile, but he proved to be quite versatile and his charcter was quite sinister at times.
All in all a good movie, Richard Donner usually makes crap films in my opinion - the lethal weapon and superman series but he earns alot of credit for Scrooged (check out my review) - but this one was alright. It's all filmed in busy New York and I liked that, they even go under the city where apparently there are loads of oriental people living their lives normally, if I came away with anything from this film it was a strong desire to go underground in New York. I would recommend it for a fiver, it's now in my DVD collection and its not the type of film that'll just sit there for ever never to be watched again (Jarhead).
The extra features includes an alternative ending whihc to be honest I didn't like. The ending is perfect as it is and I think thelaternative ending would have left me with a whole different feeling at the end but alternative endings are a dvd extra I enjoy unlike what you usually get. There are then some deleted scenes with commentary by the writer and director, they're not very interesting and you can sortof see why they were cut out and you definately don't want tolisten to the writer and the director moan on. Then there's a trailer. FO SB
Not a bad film for a fiver overall.
Pictures of 16 Blocks (DVD)
Jack and Eddy
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![16 Blocks [DVD] [2006]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78479200.jpg "16 Blocks [DVD] [2006]")
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