Flawed, but not fatally so, the ho-humming thriller “16 Blocks” offers one of the most unflattering portraits of the NYC Police Department to arrive in theaters since 9/11. What you get is this: An unkempt, paunchy Bruce Willis as a burnt-out police detective in serious need of redemption. Mos Def, affecting an annoyingly nasal rapid-fire burble, is the aspiring baker who happens to be the key witness in a far-reaching police corruption case. A menacing David Morse leads an army of crooked cops who want Mos Def most dead, while director Richard Donner, of “Lethal Weapon” fame, tries on something akin to subtlety to see if it fits (it’s a little loose in the seat). Oh, and the cop-movie cliches fly like bullets throughout. So do bullets.
The title is derived from the distance Willis’ perpetually besotted Detective Jack Mosley must travel to transport garrulous small-time crook Eddie Bunker (Mos Def) from jail to a courthouse. Mosley isn’t aware that his charge is about to give damning testimony that could take down numerous high-ranking police officers, but he figures it out after an ambush that sobers him up right quick. Willis has plenty of experience in this hardscrabble genre and he’s effective, if unspectacular, as a broken man hunted by his brothers and haunted by his own past. Something (not sure what, exactly) about “the kid,” as he calls Eddie, lights a fire in his beer belly and he’s as determined to deliver him to that courthouse as Donner is to make this far-fetched cat and mouse game seem plausible. (Rated PG-13. Running time: 105 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 4, 2006. Read the original PDF.