Mini Movie Review III

So as I'm leaving work I was standing in the lobby waiting the elevator to arrive. The down button has been pressed and is clearly lit. Out comes someone else leaving, they look at me, look at the button, then walk over and press the down button. Why? It's clearly lit. Is it a trust issue?

Still working through my queue of movies I've watched recently. Tonight we look at 16 Blocks. I'll admit, I went into this movie with some preconceived expectations. Maybe it's just me, but when I see a movie that stars Bruce Willis playing a cop, I can't help but think of Die Hard. This movie isn't Die Hard. This is Willis playing a much more believable role. He's a cop, but one that's been on the force for a while. And as we learn early on, he seems to be coasting in his job at this point. He doesn't seem to care so much about 'upholding the law' as he does looking forward to his next drink and making it through to his retirement. Once the film firmly establishes him as anti-regulation and possibly an alcoholic he's then given a task to escort a prisoner turning state's evidence that's currently being held in police custody to the court house (16 blocks away, hence the title). This task comes just as he's about to get off shift at around eight AM. Needless to say hijinks ensue when other people would rather the convict not make it to the court house. The 'tension' comes because, and you just have to sort of go with it here, if they're not at the court house by ten, the grand jury won't hear the testimony and no indictment will be made. Rapper Mos Def plays the part of the prisoner. I don't know what else Mos Def has done, but his performance here is adequate (although his nasal speech takes some getting used to, but that's just a personal preference thing). Overall I liked the movie. For the most part they manage to keep the action going without going too far over the top (there aren't explosions for the sake of explosions or anything like that, but there is a bus chase scene). I liked that the two main characters aren't perfect and larger than life, but rather appear to be regular flawed individuals. I also liked that there's no real attempt made to excuse their flaws. The DVD provided an alternate ending to the movie also that I think I liked more than the theatrical one (although from a marketing perspective I can understand why they went with what they did).

Finally, I think this is going to be the final image from last weekend. For whatever reason I just loved the fact that there were so many leaves on the ground that were bright yellow. All the other trees had dried brown leaves that looked like they had fallen off weeks ago. This one looked like all the leaves had just fallen in the past day.