Predrag This is a pretty silly movie. The idea of someone holding up a place at gunpoint, taking hostages, and the hostages eventually sympathizing and siding with the robber... well, it's been done before and much better. The talent of Nia Long is wasted in this movie. Most of her screen-time takes place at the very beginning and end of the film.I gave this an extra star simply because Jamie Foxx has some funny moments in this. He's a major talent and really deserves to do better films than this. He's a great actor, both comic and dramatic. And the rest of the cast are all very talented actors, especially Barry Corbin, who plays the sheriff of the town Jamie gets stuck in. Unusual premise upset by too much stupid moments or plot twist. But the film is entertaining enough to made this a pleasant viewing.Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

Delly There are a couple of these movies you catch on cable that manage to sneak some real wit and sympathy into a no-man's-land of stylistic boredom that doesn't even earn the name B-movie ( where this kind of movie is concerned, it's always 1986. ) There are rules to watching a movie like this. You never call them by their real name, because you can't remember their real name, but are to be referred to instead by embarrassed asides to your girlfriend that go entirely ignored while she flips through a Zagat guide, such as "I saw this piece of s--t with Burt Reynolds and Sinbad that was actually kind of funny." Also, you never watch them from beginning to end, but catch them in the middle. Failure to obey this law could result in a meteoric drop in self-esteem and feeling of productivity. That feeling like "the day's being wasted."The art of a car-wash movie consists of brushing against cliché then pulling back at the last moment. The trick isn't to get you to laugh, but to keep you smiling internally. It's all in the delivery. When Jamie Foxx first encounters a vaguely hostile Little League team and says "Children of the corn," it could very easily come off like a hokey black pop-culture reference to get the Magic Johnson Cineplex crowd roaring. But in this movie, he says it quietly, as if to himself, with a girlishly shocked tinge to his voice. The result is that you find yourself chuckling about the line a half-hour later or after the movie has ended, instead of while it's happening. Most of the jokes here work like that.And Jamie Foxx is so charming in this film. He looks "street" enough but acts the ninnyhammer as well as Woody Allen, and there's a refreshing lack of explanation about why he's such a nerd. Who else can play the badass, the geek, the samaritan, the tormented artist, the preening genius, and every shade in between, and never coast on the support and shared background of a presumed black audience? There is no pandering in Foxx's performances, no trace of the veiled minstrel show that otherwise plagues most black performers who fall back on those tricks for easy laughs. A prescription: If you don't believe me that there's a finesse to making even a good bland film, then watch Legally Blonde 2 back-to-back with this one and learn the error of your ways.

bob the moo During a vacation road trip across the Midwest, Rae is irritated enough but when she finds out that Michael spent $10,000 more than she wanted to on a car she is annoyed because the money could have gone on the house. Rae abandons him at a garage and head to the nearest airport; Michael plans to follow her but when his car is stolen he finds himself stuck in the garage diner. As if dealing with the locals is not hard enough for Michael, a robbery at the garage just makes things more complicated for him.Although it is apparent exactly what sort of film this was going to be, I was attracted by the presence of Nia Long and Jamie Foxx. The comedy is basic and I had hoped that the playing of the actors would provide enough energy to make up for what I expected to be pretty weak material. True to form the plot is stupid and the humour is very basic and I didn't really ever laugh. Happily the script avoids the usual reverse-racism that seems to be the norm in any comedy with black leads but it doesn't have a great deal going for it in its place.The film seems to rely totally on the playing of the actors – which is a problem because nobody really does that well. Imagine my disappointment when Nia Long turned out to have very little screen time to speak of. Looking down the barrel of the 2005 Oscars, it is amusing to look back and see Foxx as he used to be – essentially a clowning comedian who had not been asked to actually act. Here that is all he does and he does manage to make his stuff a bit better thanks to his energy and charisma but he is not a miracle worker and he cannot raise the material apart from once or twice. The support cast features a surprising amount of well known faces but none of them really do much with the basic material; still, it was strange to see Corbin, Cullum, Busey, Hagerty, Jackson, Sanchez and a few other "known them when you see them" people.Overall a pretty darn poor film all told with very basic material throughout. The cast are reasonably recognisable but only Foxx manages to inject energy and even then he only does it well now and again. Very few laughs and very little entertainment value – Jamie Foxx looks to have moved on from this sort of stuff, so should you.

bhcpc It is stereotyping but funny because the effort of Barry Corbin, John Cullum, Edurado Yanez and Jamie Foxx, who played those caricature roles with earnestness and subtlety. This is not for someone looking for a quick laugh fix. However, if you are willing to give the movie a chance, at the end you would find yourself rooting for the happy ending despite the absurdity of it. I really like the chemistry between Foxx and Yanez. Overall, a quite entertaining movie for people with a little patience.