nan | 楠木

I had little hopes for a film with such a unimaginative title, and perhaps of my prejudice, as well as the fact that I was watching a poor version (a very badly done dvdscr), I thoroughly did not enjoy this film.
The film should claim some merit for its actors, though. Ethan Hawke and Lawrence Fishbourne lead a mainly male cast. Gabriel Byrne, Brian Dennehy and John Leguizamo all play some substantial yet unfortunately equally unimaginative roles.
The plot offers nothing interesting, and seems utterly weird. For the most part, it follows the lines of the siege films such as Die Hard, but the scenario is poorly concieved. It’s a snowstorm New Year’s Eve, and the good guys are trapped in Precinct 13. Due to the weather conditions, no help can be reached, so the bad guys just surround the whole place and attack, wave after wave. The only thing is, those bad guys are not just bad guys. They are bad cops. And inside, the good guys are not just the good cops, but a few criminals too.
Lawrence Fishbourne, who plays the most interesting role of the whole film, Bishop, should have been given more room to develop his character. As it turns out, Bishop is just one crook with a sense honour. You won’t feel that he is bad. But he should be. And that’s one of the disappointing parts of the film–Bishop’s duality, that he is indeed a big bad wolf, is sacrificed to make hilm more acceptable to the audience, make it easier for us to root for him. It might have been a lot more enjoyable if we can simply see that he is bad to the bones and just fighting for his life. We don’t need to be rooting for him.
Ethan Hawke is the lead guy, and supposedly his character is experiencing a lot of emotional conflict in the film. He felt responsible for the deaths of his fellow cops in a flawed mission 8 months back, and ever since he has been a mess. Now he again faces a great challenge, and we don’t know if he can live up to it… But that line has been used too many times in too many films, and it doesn’t really bring this film anything.
5 out of 10.