16 Blocks (2006) or, Heavy Traffic!

6/30/2013

16 Blocks (2006) or, Heavy Traffic!

♥♥♥

This tall-lettered poster for Richard Donner's 16 Blocks presents the almost real-time cop action-thriller effectively but without much color

A police witness needs to be moved 16 blocks to a court house in New York City. The cop in charge faces serious resistance working against his completing the seemingly simple job.

Bruce Willis (Die Hard (1988)) is excellent as a troubled NYC cop, who for some unknown reason is also a burned-out alcoholic. David Morse (The Hurt Locker (2008)) is equally great as his opponent. 16 Blocks has a good anti-hero/anti-villain quality to it, which is refreshing in the superhero-age of the 00s (which still continues today.) The film also has an exciting hostage scene in a bus.
Though praised elsewhere, Mos Def (The Italian Job (2003)), who now goes by the name Yasiin Bey, plays the central witness in the film as a stereotype of a retarded African-American criminal in my opinion. This stereotype drags the film down immensely, as he is in almost the entire movie. SPOILER Another problem is that the ending of 16 Blocks is cheesy.
Master filmmaker Richard Donner (The Omen (1976)) has made the somewhat similar Lethal Weapon films (1987, '89, '92 and '98) with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover that are in some of the cases better than this, which seems to be his last film. 16 Blocks is written by Richard Wenk (The Equalizer (2014)).

Watch the trailer for the movie here

Cost: 55 mil. $
Box office: 65.6 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.19 times the cost)
[16 Blocks premiered 27 February (New York) and runs 110 minutes. It was shot in New York, Los Angeles and in Toronto, Ontario from April - June 2005 with re-shoots in July 2005. It opened #2, behind holdover hit Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion, to an 11.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more week in the top 5 (#4) and grossed 36.8 mil. $ (56.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 4.2 mil. $ (6.4 %) and Mexico with 2.6 mil. $ (4 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch better than this one. 16 Blocks reportedly heaved in an impressive 51.5 mil. $ on DVD and Blu-ray sales, which would change its status to merely a flop if figured in. It is Donner's last film. Willis returned with a voice performance in Over the Hedge (2006), That '70s Show Special: The Final Goodbye (2006, TV special) and theatrically in the flesh in Fast Food Nation (2006); Def in Journey to the End of the Night (2006); and Morse in A.W.O.L (2006, short), House (2006-07) and theatrically in Hounddog (2007). 16 Blocks is rotten at 56 % with a 5.9/10 critical averate at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of 16 Blocks?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

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6/30/2013

16 Blocks (2006) or, Heavy Traffic!

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