This is wholly typical to look at as "wrong man" thriller but makes more interesting sense when you take stock of it as modern noir. It begins with a man who is going around with someone's wife. He may be well meaning and the husband an abusive dolt, but there's something not quite right here and will need to be settled.So his tiptoeing in the dark takes noir shape in a narrative where he finds himself at the mercy of a plot where he was only being used, a character in a story prepared by cunning authors to exploit what he thought was love. The main tool for giving shape to turmoil is that the anxiety is so overwhelming, he splinters in two; one where he is pretending to work the case where he has been framed as culprit, the other where he must rush to prevent himself from being outed, tinkering with the story, changing clues.I like how it is all laid out in the very first scene, the scene of the narrator's emergence into the noir world; he has answered a call for a break-in to someone's house, she says it was someone exactly like him, he tries to seduce, then she does. Then we pull back to have it revealed that they know each other and were only playing, the call an excuse for the affair. But of course in due time we get to note that she was seducing outside the seduction, the affair an excuse.Along the way we have Florida as the evocative backdrop, some ordinary mechanics of tension as he fights to reclaim control.It's brought back full circle in the end where he emerges from the nightmare of this illicit affair and, having realized the hazard to his soul, is relieved to be taken back by his estranged wife (she was mightily impressed that he didn't kill and steal, okay). So with Denzel on the cover this might seem like any thriller, but it's from a noir genealogy. Denzel and this filmmaker had made a more alluring noir prior in Devil in a Blue Dress, this is more mechanical.Noir Meter: 3/4 | Neo-noir or post noir? Neo

Well-acted formulaic thriller with obligatory twists. It's difficult to write a long review without spoilers, and it doesn't really merit an extensive one either, because, at heart, this film is so unexceptional. For me it's a 6 to 7, but I'm going with 7, because of how beautifully it was filmed in Florida. I really, really loved the locations, the camera work, and the pacing of the film, all of which I thought were excellent and made this film a genuine pleasure to watch, even though in all other respects it was so ordinary. Watch it for the travelogue aspects in addition to the storyline and you too might find that it is worth the time.

Matt Whitlock, the police chief of a small town near Florida, is separated from his wife, Alex, a detective also based in Florida. He's been having an affair with Ann Harrison, a woman who's wants to escape from her husband.Ann also has terminal cancer. When her doctor tells her of a new treatment that's too expensive, he gives her nearly half a million dollars that he seized from some drug dealers. When she turns up dead, all the evidence points to Whitlock. He tries to figure out what's going on but it appears he's been set up...Denzel has a knack of always releasing a movie in the first few months of the year here in the UK, and whilst sometimes they are not groundbreaking, he always manages to raise the bar on the averageness of the whole thing.The Book Of Eli, Safe House, and the Bone Collector are a few, and this is another one of those cases.While you watch the film, you get lost in the ridiculousness of it all, and its tense to boot, but after, when you are thinking about the movie, it does get you thinking 'hang on? He got away with what?'.So despite the plot holes and the silly narrative, its exciting in a cheap Hitchcock rip off style. The locations are great, supporting cast good, and there are a couple of tense moments, particularly when Matt tries to cover up the phone calls and tracking down someone in a hotel.It just shows how classy an actor such as Washington, can bring the mundane into something very interesting.It's nothing remarkable, but it entertains while it lasts...

The interplay between the characters in this taught thriller is delicious. In a small coastal Florida town, Chief Whitlock is enjoying a romantic liaison with the smoldering Ann Harrison while he is temporally separated from his wife, Alex Whitlock, who is a detective on the same small police force. No problem until the Chief comes to believe that Ann needs some 1/2 million bucks to undergoing a special cancer treatment, so he retrieves some confiscated drug money to do so. Uh, oh soon he learns that he was set up and the feds are closing in to count the money, which he doesn't have and as Alex is constantly breathing down his neck for answers to an arson and other issues.Chae is Whitlock's friend and their playfulness and support for each other is a nice reprieve from the "argumentative" cops in 48 hrs and such films. Ann is the hot film noir babe, Alex the hot stylish homicide cop and John the somewhat goofy medical examiner.Denzel is superb in what is a standard film noir thriller. The plot is simple and not overly complicated like Sleven, which has more twists and turns than The Beast in Kings Island. And no forever car chases, used when scripts run out of steam. Each scene here is necessary and with progression to the storyline. There is very little "down time" for a rest, but constant forward interest in the Chief's dilemma.Served simply and straight up like two eggs with bacon on the side, this thriller abounds with tension as the Chief is racing against time to retrieve the federal money and trying to deal with a nagging, annoying "separated" wife that seems to put a road block into his every move. This is a richly textured movie with a nice subtle sound track. I liked the "rattlesnake tail shake" sound as he neared danger.I am so happy the director, Carl Franklin, didn't use the unnecessary "jumpy" visual effects in Quake's editing program that were so prevalent and distracting in Man on Fire.I have seen this movie several times and although I have the DVD, I watch it whenever it appears on TV. Hope you enjoy the story, direction, music track, editing, and acting as much as I did.