16 Blocks (2006) * * *

Directed by:  Richard Donner

Starring:  Bruce Willis, Mos Def, David Morse, Cylk Cozart

We think we know how 16 Blocks will play out.    Bruce Willis will channel his inner John McLane and kill a lot of baddies as he delivers a grand jury witness to the courthouse in the nick of time.    16 Blocks throws a few surprises our way.    There is a hero buried within Willis' weary, drunken detective Jack Moseley, but you have to dig past his pain and the booze he is likely pickled in to get to it.    16 Blocks is an action thriller about not just Moseley's redemption, but the redemption of Eddie Bunker (Mos Def), a petty criminal who witnessed a cop murdering someone.   He wants to open a bakery far away from New York and start his life anew...if he survives.

As 16 Blocks opens, Moseley is sitting at a murder scene ensuring no one disrupts it until the medical examiner arrives.    He is a detective, but almost in name only.    He is a full-blown alcoholic who looks aged well beyond his years.    When his shift ends, Moseley is assigned another task; to transport Eddie Bunker sixteen blocks to the downtown courthouse by 10am, which is when the grand jury assignment expires.    Why the parameters?    To create a deadline which will always be in the back of everyone's mind as Jack and Eddie elude the villains.   

Since Eddie witnessed a murder involving a dirty cop, he is chased by a group of dirty cops who don't want him to testify.     The leader is Captain Frank Nugent (Morse), Jack's former partner who tries to at first talk Jack into letting Eddie die and protect his brethren.    On this day, Jack does not play ball and is soon on the run from Frank and his henchmen.     Why did Jack decide to protect Eddie instead of handing him over to certain death?    The answers are revealed later and make sense.

Willis has played a cop so often in his career that he could be an honorary NYPD police officer.    In 16 Blocks, he is flawed, but musters up enough strength for a last rally.    If he goes down, he'll go down fighting instead of at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.    Eddie is a guy with diarrhea of the mouth and doesn't make it easy for Jack to handle him.    Although Mos Def is surely up to the verbal challenge of playing Eddie Bunker, I question the screenwriters' decision to have him talk non-stop.    Run DMC's You Talk Too Much was written with guys like Eddie Bunker in mind.    Did they like the contrast of the stoic Jack vs. the talkative Eddie?    I'm not sure I did.

Morse's Frank Nugent is also facing an inner conflict.    He knows what he must do, but does his damndest to spare Jack.    Does he really want to not kill Jack or does he think a drunken Jack is a better one?    Morse is direct and solemn as Frank, knowing full well he may need to kill Jack to protect himself from Eddie's testimony.    He's not just a simple, shallow villain.

Director Richard Donner directed the Lethal Weapon series, The Omen, and the original Superman.    He is action thriller master, but in the cases of the films I just mentioned (as well as 16 Blocks), he is attracted to stories in which its heroes are conflicted and aren't just wall-to-wall action.    He takes the time to appreciate the humor and humanity in his stories in between the hail of gunfire and chases.