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25 / 07 / 2010
Fantasy F1:
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11 / 07 / 2010
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27 / 06 / 2010
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30 / 05 / 2010
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30 / 05 / 2010
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16 / 05 / 2010
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10 / 05 / 2010
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10 / 05 / 2010
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19 / 04 / 2010
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18 / 04 / 2010
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06 / 04 / 2010
Fantasy Rally:
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05 / 04 / 2010
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03 / 04 / 2010
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29 / 03 / 2010
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14 / 03 / 2010
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09 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy F1!
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08 / 03 / 2010
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The results from Rally Mexico are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Jordan on 1st April.

17 / 02 / 2010
Fantasy Rally:
The points awarded for a win have changed in the real WRC, so we've reflected the changes in our scoring too. Check the rules to see the details. Next rally is Mexico on 5th March, teams will be frozen at midnight on the night of Thursday 4th March.

16 / 02 / 2010
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31 / 01 / 2010
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25 / 10 / 2009
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02 / 08 / 2009
Reviews:
Sorry, there won't be any more movie reviews for the foreseeable future. Events have overtaken me. Catch up on reviews you may have missed.

18 / 08 / 2005
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16 Blocks

16 Blocks

Cast: Bruce Willis, Mos Def, David Morse.

Directed by Richard Donner.

Story: A washed-up cop takes a witness 16 blocks to the courthouse.

Running Time: 1hr 45 minutes.

UK Certificate 12A.

 

16 Blocks is your standard Bruce Willis underachieving-aged-cop-with-a-big-heart and-a-weakness-for-the-sauce nonsense, but it's realised particularly well.

Bruce Willis to David Morse: 'Weren't you in Shaun of the Dead?' "Take this witness to the courthouse, it's only 16 blocks away and you've got two hours to do it." What can possibly go wrong? Well, this is Bruce Willis, so it's not long before the bullets start flying and the blood starts spilling. The body count is low in this one - it's more of an A-Team shootfest where no-one can hit a barn door at ten paces - but the tension is still high as Brucie gets deeper and deeper into the doo-doo as the morning progresses. Bruce has made a great transition from action hero (Die Hard) into wheezy wrinkly (Hostage) and he gives a fine performance here. His ward, hip-hop artiste Mos Def (unwisely cast in the past as Ford Prefect in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) puts in the best performance of his career so far (which isn't saying much), but for some reason deems it necessary to adopt a nasal voice that is as irritating as a moth flying in your face for the duration of the movie. He doesn't half bang on as well, wittering on about everything and nothing, with his crowning glory being a "riddle" that has been shamelessly stolen from the internet. Why on earth do scriptwriters do that? Surely the meanest of intelligences would tell them that if they saw it on the internet, so will many of the viewers.

Mos Def, adopting the dozy underdog expression that means he'll come good before the movie's over. Plotwise there's nothing here that we haven't seen many times before. The final twist is more original, but is a little shaky in the plausibility stakes and gives the final reel a sugary coating that it really doesn't need. We have had enough of Hollywood's rose-tinting and, particularly with a movie that was always going to be an also-ran, it would have been nice to see a braver ending, which could have elevated it from a seen-it-all-before action flick to a quality and genuinely impressive adventure. The very first scene, though not particularly original, is very well done, with Brucie recording into his dictaphone that he's been set up, before starting us on the trail to find out how that happened. If this quality had been allowed to filter through to the end without the Hollywood saccharine monsters taking over, I would have been toying with a 5/5 rating - as it is, it only just scrapes a 4.

16 Blocks is a nicely made run-of-the-mill thriller. Nothing novel or particularly creative, but all sown up with a satisfying feel that serves to justify the price of a ticket. No-one will remember it next year, but it fulfils its purpose.

I enjoyed this film: 4/5

I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: 4/5

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 2/5 - some guns and action. One use of the F word.

To enjoy this film you should be: at a loose end one evening.

 

16 Blocks was released in the UK on 27th April.

 

Your comments

The comments printed here are not necessarily the views of Forwardcharm!

 

There are two types of people who watch magic shows - those that analyse just how the tricks are done, and those that sit back and enjoy the magic. The same goes for this film. I enjoyed this movie because I didn't read any reviews about it beforehand, I only knew it was the latest Bruce Willis film, and through the film I didn't try to predict what was coming next, I just sat back and enjoyed the storyline. But do listen hard in the first twenty minutes, as you are catapaulted into the plot. It is vintage Bruce Willis acting, with a strong flavour of Die Hard cop, hints of the
down-at-heel private investigator from "The Last Boy Scout", and a touch of his sweating overweight character in "The Jackal".
Herby, Salisbury