didn't buy it

Rating: 6/10 (24 July 2002)

as my personal opinion, i have to say dr.dre and snoop dogg were much more convincing as l.a. street men as denzel will ever be. all the time i could see denzel's black suite and red tie. shrug. what do i know about l.a. street life, but that's just the way i felt. meanwhile, ethan hawke, sigh, has never been my favorite actors, performs a whining mouse-like role as the partner, maybe it's supposed to be that way, didn't like it anyway.
anyhow, the strong points of this movie are good action sequences, nice street feeling and an ok plot. there are all kinds of good side characters in this film, some who are shamefully underused. actually, the lead pair is the only one that i didn't really like. the higher-then-average rating i gave came really from the general feeling in the movie, thanks to the side roles.
the last 20 minutes of the film is bucket stuff though, i've seen a similar ending a thousand times already. the director could have thought of something more original.