By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
'16 Blocks': Donner's NYC In 10 Seconds or Less
Somewhere in the blur that was Monday, I landed at the Ziegfeld Theater for the premiere of Bruce Willis’s good-cop/bad-cop action thriller 16 Blocks. Before I could tell him I work for Entertainment Weekly, he was shuffled down the red carpet, past the metal detectors (!) and into the waiting auditorium.
The same goes for Willis’s 16 Blocks co-stars Mos Def and David Morse, although I did manage to ask director (and 76-year-old Gotham native) Richard Donner just how New York-y his New York film is. I mean, for a place that plays a character in every movie it hosts, how did he approach the city this time around? “How does New York ever play as a character?” he shouted to The Reeler as a publicist dragged him away. “The best. The best. From a little kid growing up on the streets, it hasn’t changed a bit.”
Lamenting my lost opportunity to go over little Richard Schwartzberg’s Manhattan, I spent a few extra seconds with screenwriter Richard Wenk–another local guy–going over what he had in mind. “Really, it is the character. It is the 16 blocks from the Fifth Precinct to 100 Centre St., through Little Italy and Chinatown and some of the Financial District. It’s a very colorful, gritty, real area, and it’s also an area that cops know very well. So the idea of a chess match between two ex-partners on their streets was very interesting to me.”
As for influences, what did you expect? “Dog Day Afternoon, definitely,” Wenk told me. “I always loved the fact the film was real and honest. Telling a commercial (story) about the remaking of a man in 90 minutes–I wanted to keep that kind of flavor.”
And just like that–it was over. Next red carpet stop (hopefully): V For Vendetta. It might take an act of Congress, so start writing your letters of support now.