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[d.anders]

I've never seen Denzel Washington in a turkey. I had a strong respect for his choices. I was stunned by how bad this crime thriller is. It's from 2025, and I had never heard of it. It's directed by Spike Lee, and the cast is pretty solid, with Jeffrey Wright, Dean Winters (from Oz), John Douglas Thompson, and Wendell Pierce making a cameo.

The premise of the story is ridiculous. What was Denzel thinking when he read the script? The actors are fine, but no amount of solid acting can save this mess.

Apart from constantly rolling your eyes at the premise, the strangest thing about this "thriller" is the movie score. The background music stands out like a sore thumb, and it's all very, very cheesy, forcing fake emotive qualities upon the viewer. Supposedly, the movie is scored by Howard Drossin, who built the score alongside Spike Lee. Wow. The score is so bad, so annoying, it deadens the mediocre material with false emotion, dragging everything down to strident, trite, fakakta.

The ending had an opportunity to create an Irene Cara/Fame moment, except Aiyana-Lee (never heard of her) was not spell-binding, and the song she wrote was not memorable.

This movie would make an interesting subject in a film production class on what not to do. I believe it bombed at the box office, and it's easy to see why. If anyone watches this, I'd love to hear other opinions.