The title character is a Chicago cop (Samuel L. Jackson), renowned for his diplomacy in hostage situations, who is forced by unimaginative scriptwriting to do an about-face and take a few hostages of his own in order to clear himself of his partner's murder. The problem for director F. Gary Gray is how to deliver the expected, the demanded, the required fireworks (majority rules) even in a static standoff and even though we know perfectly well that the hero is not actually going to kill any innocent parties. The attempted solutions to the problem only increase the implausibility. The whole thing is shot in that big, bold, modern manner whereby everything is pulled forward into the camera lens, filling up and flattening the screen space, so that our experience of the action is a little like the inside view of a trash compactor. Kevin Spacey, J.T. Walsh, Ron Rifkin, David Morse, Paul Giamatti. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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