Good Police Thriller with Excellent Acting.

Rating: 8/10 (26 March 2006)

It's obvious that Spike Lee is fixated on the subject of race and culture, even in this, his most commercial venture. The film has a great multi-cultural sound track and the movie is populated with the racial and ethnic rainbow that makes up NYC: blacks, Jews, Sikhs, Hispanics, and lots and lots of white folk. Lee even works in an Albanian. Lee is more upfront on how these people all relate to each other in the American melting pot than most other directors. At one point, when interviewing a Sikh who complains of discrimination at airports, Denzel Washinton's character tells him: "But I'll bet you have no trouble getting a cab." This real-life stuff is priceless.
The story line - the caper - is rather mysterious for a great part of the film, and in the end it's rather a disappointment, if not altogether preposterous. Nevertheless, it's still a film with a lot of atmosphere and with very good acting performances, especially by Denzel Washinton. Here he is is not the pretty-boy Denzel of past years, but a middle-aged, roly-poly NYC detective who's obviously cut a few corners in his life. If this film weren't so colorful it would have made a wonderful film-noir.