Well thank god Denzel pulls a solid performance out of the bag because without it this film would fall apart.
The story/plot is really too broken up and episodic to fit Ridley Scott's direction. Characters come and go without any real feel for how they develop the story or flesh out the main characters; if you want an example watch out for Frank's baseball playing nephew. It just makes no sense. Then have a think about how Scorcese or De Palma would have handled these characters.
I'm not knocking Scott and the two leads do their job pretty well. It just needed to be a much narrower story. Then all those little touches and neat sequences (Washington's immaculate outfits or Crowe following the $20k bait) would nail the story in your mind's eye.
The story/plot is really too broken up and episodic to fit Ridley Scott's direction. Characters come and go without any real feel for how they develop the story or flesh out the main characters; if you want an example watch out for Frank's baseball playing nephew. It just makes no sense. Then have a think about how Scorcese or De Palma would have handled these characters.
I'm not knocking Scott and the two leads do their job pretty well. It just needed to be a much narrower story. Then all those little touches and neat sequences (Washington's immaculate outfits or Crowe following the $20k bait) would nail the story in your mind's eye.