Great start, stretches for an end

Rating: 7/10 (18 November 2002)

There are spoilers/plot clues in this review.
The good things about this movie are: Great/good acting from all the major characters. Excellent first hour. Its really LA on the film; some of the bit actors are claimed to be actual gang members, and I cringed imagining myself having to navigate through such hostile territory.
The parts that aren't so good are: Crooked cops would not try to set up a first-day-in-narcotics rookie. It would smell bad to everyone. A loose cannon like the Washington character would not have made it for 13 years on the force. The ending was predictable but they should've at least given it a little more time playing up to it. The short story is that the plot gets more and more out there as the movie goes on. By the end of the movie I didn't believe it anymore.