This laborious urban crime thriller is hardly tailor-made for red-haired David Caruso, ex-hero cop from TV's NYPD Blue and now the lead in Five's CSI Miami. Caruso's at his best as an island of calm fury. Here, looking like a red-headed Alan Ladd, he's barely in charge even of his own destiny as a former petty thief who, forced by a cousin to do one last job, is caught, jailed, loses his wife in a car crash and suffers the final indignity of having to turn police informer to secure permanent freedom. Caruso remains passive throughout, while Nicolas Cage does his best to pump up the psycho-villain he is asked to help trap. But Cage's part as written is more silly than sinister, while the crime world depicted here seems at one remove from the real thing. The sharp-talking Samuel L Jackson, though, is close to his incisive best as the cop involved. Helen Hunt has too little to do as Caruso's wife.

©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes