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It is an action film under the cop and crime genre. The story is a glimpse on the enemy-ally paradigm which is within the realm of the workplace. The theme enlightens that the relations with one's enemy and ally are subordinate to and mutate with circumstantial factors. It is a good exploration on the issue of group cohesiveness and group dynamics under the presence of external enemy.

The film is moderately-paced in the first half and fast-paced in the second. The mood of the audience is heightened when the protagonists (the good cops and the criminals) are contained by the antagonists (the bad cops) in an enclosed police station in which all means of communication are cut off. Suspense is further built upon the return of a cop working in the police station, thereby triggering off the audience's hypothesis forming process about the identity of the character. However, the criminal character, Bishop (Laurence Fishburne), does not assist much in enhancing the readability or hermeneutics of the story (admitting that his arrest triggers the assault on the precinct).

Director Jean-Francois Richet expresses the forcefulness and quickness of macabre violence by bringing the malicious wounds caused by bullets and knifes/sharp weapons into mise-en-scene in close-up visuals. Other than scenes of exchanges of gunfire and blasts, Richet also makes shots of body fighting. In expounding the theme of the enemy-ally dilemma, Richet adopts a sequence of short dialogues of each pair of cop and criminal in tracking shots linked up by the transition device of black wipe-out.

The denouement of the film is coarsely made, in a sense that it fails to hold and sustain the tension on the part of the audience. Nor does it make use of the elements in the diegesis to create a double climax. It is for this reason that the audience will surely enjoy more its middle progression and climax than its ending. While the film attempts to create the kind of tension in the "Die Hard" sequels and "Con Air" (Dir: Simon West, 1997), it is far less successful and intense than they.

註：本評論純屬影評作者個人意見，並不代表本網立場。
Note: This views presented in this review is solely the views of the critic who wrote it and do not represent the stance of our website.

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