major problem with this film

Rating: 6/10 (10 March 2008)

Warning! SPOILERS galore!
I was genuinely interested in this film to begin with... and I absolutely loved the acting of both Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke.
BUT - about three quarters of the way through this thing I could no longer suspend disbelief.There are just too many things that accumulate for this film to be taken as seriously as it could have been...
Yes, there are rogue cops out there. That is not my problem with this film. It probably comes extremely close to the truth when showing how corrupt the cops can be - and also probably very close to what the streets and their scum are like.
The problem is with what happens to Ethan Hawke during the day in the life ... First problem. He smokes some pot laced with crack. He is totally out of his head... but probably not long enough to be realistic. He should probably have been almost totally knocked out for several hours... but it seems like only an hour or so after being high he is charging down a street and capturing totally by himself two would-be rapists... Not bloody likely. (And while I'm at it, I can't imagine real cops walking away from the perps leaving them with their handcuffs on... they would have at least taken back their equipment!
Please remember that one of the rapists kicks Ethan in the side at least two or three times during their scuffle.
Second: Ethan gets beaten up a second time by the hoods in the house where he is left by Washington. Sorry, but anyone who has been beaten up once by rapists and then beaten up a second time by these hoods would have been barely able to walk or do anything for the rest of the night. But not Ethan... he goes after Washington, and not only gets into a tumbledown fight that should ALSO have left him totally unable to move - but he actually jumps off a roof onto the windshield of a moving car and is STILL able to walk and operate on a pretty high level.
Sorry, but if anyone reading this has ever taken even a quarter of the punishment Ethan does in this film, they would know that he would have been inoperative for most of the day... and certainly not in any shape to get through the last quarter hour of this film; Like, who is this guy, anyway? Superman?
Third: How many 4 year old kids do you know that would trust a guy he's never met more than his own father? How many women who greet their man the way Washington's girlfriend (wife?) does when they stop off for lunch - would abandon him so quickly near the end? She grabs up her kid but does nothing to help protect Washington... and there is no explanation of why.
I could go on - but why bother? There are so many holes in this film that although I liked much of it - and could believe the angle of the rogue cops etc... there is just no way that someone like Ethan would have been able to physically make it through this day.
Oh, and by the way - in a town of how many millions, what would the odds be that the ONE 14 year-old girl who Ethan saves from being raped would turn out to be related to one of the hoods who is supposed to have killed him for Washington? Oh, come on! That is the weakest part of the entire plot. Could anyone who took two seconds to THINK really accept such a corny device? One would have better odds trying to win the lottery!
All of this means that the film is really pretty stupid - or taking its audience for dunces... The only reason I gave this film a 6 instead of a 4 is because it is well-shot and well- acted.