Originally Unoriginal

Rating: 3/10 (19 July 2006)

Spoiler is minimal, just briefly describing character transformation properties.
Some cute parts n' all and I do think it had its moments, but, and don't pretend that you ALL haven't had this same exact gut feeling when watching this: I've seen this movie 500 times, including the day that it first came out -- the SAME DAY THE THEATERS WERE INVENTED!!! Even descriptions of this movie use the iconic "the" precept to characters, indicative of the famous "here we go again" characters (think "the old" ....): "the" old distracted DA, "the" old good black cop with "the" old wayward black thug son (brother), "the" old racist veteran cop and "THE" OLD IDEALISTIC YOUNG PARTNER (that's my "favorite"). Dialogue (paraphrasing): "You don't KNOW what it's like yet MAN. When you get out there, you'll see MAN, it's BLACKS, they're BAD, I'm telling you MAN. You'll see. You'll think like I do." Meanwhile, Dillon's character goes from deep seeded racist to french lover of the black people in one split second upon his realization that "black people can be in a life or death situation" as well as white people. That's it. He's a racist a-hole turned Mother Theresa upon seeing a black woman in a car accident.
Now do I think the movie made some good points? Yes. And I don't mind hearing good racist points from time to time, EVEN if they're not NOVEL, but how can this movie be so. The whole perpetrated unique-dom of this movie's slant on racism is based on the "locksmith" character (just a poor honest Mexican guy, just trying to make a poor buck, yeah so he has gang warfare tattoos that make him look like Gacy, but the poor SOB is just misunderstood, he really sings nursery rhymes to his kids. THAT'S who he REALLY is). That's supposedly the character mis-notion that has precepted the movie. So basically, the "original" take on racism in this movie is that racism has many of its roots in injust and/or rash stereotypes... Will someone remind me what the old take was again??