A familiar sort of action thriller, this Denzel Washington vehicle begins savagely but well. It gets increasingly fatuous after half-way, though, ending on a note of James Bond spoof. You've sat through these plot developments and characters before. Washington is the hotshot cop who brings down hit-man John Lithgow on the verge of his breakthrough to big-time crime. Lithgow nurses an insane desire for revenge while behind bars. By the time he escapes seven years later, Washington has risen to assistant DA. But it's seven years' bad luck when Lithgow's evil plotting turns his life upside down and makes him the wanted man. Russell Mulcahy tries hard to make us credit that no-one would believe Washington's story of a madman bent on framing him, but he never quite succeeds, nor convinces us that Washington's underworld childhood friends (led by Ice T) would come to his rescue at the end. Lithgow's an excellent menace when the script doesn't make him look silly; Washington has his moments and seemingly does much of his own stuntwork.


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