Mixed bag, good acting, so so plotting...

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2004)

......I am sure there Will be spoilers below!
Okay, this movie. I hadn't seen it 'til yesterday, some 3 years or so after it came out and Denzel got his Oscar. Alrighty. It was like Narc and Deep Blue, maybe? but w/ the obligatory non-actor rappers making extended cameos-Dr Dre, Snoop, etc. amidst the carnage and shaky cam.
I enjoyed seeing Cliff Curtis, considering how good he is in Three Kings etc etc it's fun to see him playing yet another hispanic though he is a Maori in real life.
I didn't quite buy Denzel's character being able to do this routine and get away w/ it for so long, I also thought that it made our police force out to be a pack of mercenarial rats, far from the folks I know who are in the force for real. That-ain't them.
I agree that the little 'wallet pic/call' scene was bogus, you def. had to let the disbelief suspension kick in bigtime for it.
Denzel is very good, focuses, believable. Ditto Ethan Hawke. You get nice turns by Scott Glenn and Eva Mendes as well. I am not so sure that this will hold up down the road, but for what it's worth, sure it's worthy of seeing. Ignore the whole Russki mob angle, clearly that was phoned in and not really thought out 100% in the developmental process.
*** outta ****, first half is better than second.