I liked it

Rating: 6/10 (16 April 2007)

Despite this movies problems (conveniently listed below*) I enjoyed it. It has style, maybe too much. It has quite a payoff in the end. Willis and Harnett, both of whom I can take or leave, are pretty good here. The idea of two buildings taking on personalities is interesting. If you are on the fence about renting it, I'd say give it a try.
Problems (and spoilers):
* It's supremely violent and unethical before you learn the rationale for it, which you may decide does or doesn't validate the excess.
* Arbitrary moral code: Lucy Liu is o.k., in the end, with Josh and Bruce killing her neighbor, Nick? So now the family of this poor jerk they kill (for the Kansas City Shuffle) is entitled to exact their revenge on Willis & Hartnett? Or it's o.k. to kill that schmo because we don't know him and he's in debt?
* There's a horrid, scenery-chewing performance by Ben Kingley as an ingratiating Jewish gangster. He seems incapable of anything else since Sexy Beast.
* The death that "doesn't actually occur" occurs twice in this movie. I'd love to never see this device used again, and any author who uses it should have a computer keyboard shoved up his anus. This movie is too clever for a ruse this stupid and exhausted. Did MgGuigan pick it up from Danny Aiello's asinine "miraculous non-death" in Hudson Hawk, another Willis movie, albeit a very poor one?