I consider myself a fan of Walter Hill and Eddie Murphy but I ever actually never really liked this film much - some good action but it was too heavy, too serious.
I didn't like the script much either. It's got a great high concept and the story is structured well enough but there's all this tiresome and unpleasant race baiting - Cates calling Reggie "n*gger" and "spearchucker".
The big print is written in tight Walter Hill style but there's a lot - a lot - of chat. There's dreadfully long scenes that go on forever - was this Gross? In particular there's an early agonizingly dull chat between Cates and his girlfriend, who could be entirely removed from the script and it wouldn't affect the story. Why wasn't she threatened or killed or something?
The two villains are good - Ganz and Billy. There's some more racism though about how Billy is an idiot who just follows people.
The story is a collection of scenes really rather than a complex narrative. Few memorable support characters - a whingeing police captain, a few hookers. I really didn't like it.
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