'16 Blocks' - Movie Review

The movie opens on a badly broken cop, Jack Mosley (Bruce Willis) who appears to get only minor assignments and drinks heavily on the job. After his brokenness is established and at the end of an overnight shift, he's given the assignment of transporting a witness 16 blocks to the courthouse. The witness is Eddie Bunker, played by Mos Def at his most annoying. The man is annoying even when he doesn't mean to be: imagine what he's like when he's trying. A two hour movie of that was all I could take. And everyone kept calling him "the kid," even though he was 33 at the time. The assignment turns out to be a bit more than Jack signed up for: someone tries to kill the witness while Jack is out of the car buying alcohol. He manages to stop that, but things get progressively uglier as it becomes clear that Eddie's testimony is important, and there are a lot of people - even cops - who want him dead.

The movie is annoying, gritty, and has an ending far more upbeat than the content deserves. Not one I enjoyed.