Ho-hum thriller. It's so hard to believe in Travolta as a bad-ass, and he really overdoes it. And Denzel, usually so good, seems to be just phoning it in. The direction is over-raught. The camera is constantly doing zoomy, blurry, streaky, flashy things which may be meant to ramp up the excitement but instead are very distracting. The script is atrocious, with f-bombs wedged in all over the place. I assume the profanity is an attempt to create realism, but it actually has the opposite effect, and feels, well, wedged in. And there are wholly unnecessary scenes where the police are moving the demanded-for money through the city and getting in fantastic and unrealistic accidents. This also, I assume, was an attempt to ramp up the action, and it also, shocker, fails. James Gandolfini is amusing as the mayor, and that's pretty much the only reason this isn't one star. I'd say avoid this, and maybe watch some paint dry instead. That would be much more riveting.
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