As for Mann's own virtuosity, the substance of the movie is so trivial that the nervy, scanning, night-vision camerawork just seems mannered. He seems to have read the script and gone ahead despite his better judgment; he's still looking out the car windows for something to make a movie about as he's filming the convictionless scenes. Unfortunately, the movie was shot on high-definition digital video and images that are supposed to have a burnished quality--the polished surfaces of an urban hell--have the dull sheen of images reflected on plastic rather than metal. In extreme close-ups, Foxx's face sometimes scans as flat as a refrigerator magnet, and the whole movie looks like surveillance camera footage. It's another example of Hollywood spending a lot more money to do badly what independents have done well for a fraction of the cost (e.g., Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002), in which the dimness of vision made poetic sense).

You can find this review and a lot besides at The Kitchen Cabinet.

Alan Dale is the author of What We Do Best: American Movie Comedies of the 1990s and Comedy Is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies.