16 Blocks
Short description
Jack Mosley is a veteran New York City police detective whose drinking and attitude have worn thin with his superiors. Near the end of a shift, he is handed what looks like a minor errand: move a talkative small-time offender named Eddie Bunker from custody to the courthouse sixteen blocks away, in time for Eddie to testify before a grand jury. The two men could hardly be more different, and the trip is meant to take minutes. Instead, powerful parties who want the witness silenced turn the short route across the city into a running fight, and Jack has to decide how far he is willing to go to get Eddie there alive.
Richard Donner directed the film, working from a screenplay by Richard Wenk. It is the seventeenth of the eighteen features listed for Donner, arriving after Timeline and before Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. Bruce Willis plays Jack, with Yasiin Bey as Eddie, David Morse as Frank Nugent, Jenna Stern, Casey Sander and Cylk Cozart in supporting roles. The production was a large one, with 94 credited cast members and 176 credited crew.
Released in March 2006, the film cost about 55 million dollars and returned roughly 66 million worldwide, a modest result against its budget. On IMDb it holds 6.6 from about 138,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.5 from around 2,171 votes. The critics' rating of 6.1 from 158 reviews places it close to the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Bruce Willis wanted rapper Ludacris to play the role of Eddie.
- All the police officers in the film were armed with Glock 19 pistols.
- Filming period: April 21 – July 10, 2005.
- Pre-production began in April 2005 in Toronto and lasted 9 weeks, after which filming took place in Manhattan. The heat that prevailed in New York at that time added even more authenticity to the film, which takes place on a stifling summer morning.
- While the film crew prepared everything necessary, the actors immersed themselves in their roles. Bruce Willis, for example, spent several nights patrolling Brooklyn with Mike Kinane, a veteran of the New York Police Department who also advised the filmmakers on police matters – weapons, uniforms, duties, and dialogue. Kinane helped the director create a realistic atmosphere in the film and coordinate the work of 250 actors, as if they were truly members of a special operations unit.
- The film has an alternative ending in which Willis's character dies in the courthouse, but a recording on a dictaphone proves the guilt of corrupt police officers. A happy ending was shown in theaters.
- The most challenging scene to stage was the film's key scene, where the hero, desperately trying to overcome the last stretch to the courthouse, speeds through busy streets driving a passenger bus. The main filming of this scene took twelve days in Toronto, for which stunt coordinator Branko Rakic needed 46 extras and 25 vehicles, including 5 New York transit buses: two for exterior and interior scenes, one for special effects scenes (shattering glass, etc.), a fourth for extras, specially reinforced to avoid damage during collisions, and a fifth, designed specifically for filming a fast drive through an alley. 12 cameras were used to capture this climactic scene from all angles.
- Bruce Willis's character, Jack Mosley, was named after Robert De Niro's character in "Midnight Run" (1988), who found himself in a similar situation. His full name was Jack Walsh, but throughout almost the entire film he used the stolen badge of FBI agent Alonso Mosley.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
