I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

How good should this film have been(?) Starring Robert De Niro and Forest Whitaker, two great American actors, and 50'Cent Curtis Jackson who I've noticed acting well in other films, this should have been, at the least, a satisfyingly good film. So when I saw The Sony Movie Channel was airing it I thought I'd give it a view.DAMN! This was bad! If I were any of the actors I wouldn't even consider putting this on my resume. Robert De Niro played the leader of a group of bad cops, Joe Sarcone, who recruits Malo, Curtis Jackson, and his friends. These had previously been thugs who had supposedly seen the light but were very quick to jump on board Sarcone's ship (so much for the good guys) Milo is paired with LaRue, Forest Whitaker, who is a drug addict and will let anybody off if he can score from them. Even though he's not openly racist he does have a hatred for whites. This is balanced off by a minor player in the film, Billy Morrison, played brilliantly by Matt Gerald (who is the only acting light in this dire movie), as he has a hatred for anyone not white and is very vocal and aggressive about it.The only good cop in the whole film is Terrence Burke, played by Robert Wisdom. He tries to keep his distance from the others and even gets his rookie partner A D, Malcolm Goodwin, to help him train the kids in his area at football. The only community-minded cop in the city, it would appear. Even when the cop who's pursuing Sarcone's mob, Robert Jude (played by Michael McGrady) tries to recruit Malo by telling him what really happened to his father, you get the sense that he isn't as clean as he should be.This is a pretty depressing tale that paints the majority of police in a bad light stating that most of them are corrupt and on the take. If I were in this city I'd not ask a policeman directions because they would direct you down an alley, shoot you in the back and steal all your valuables.The writer, L Phillipe Casseus, gives the audience a bleak tale of greed and depravity in the police force. This isn't a bad thing, it's been done before; though, it's been done better. The fault, I believe, lies with the director Jessy Terrero, who probably only got the job because he'd worked with Jackson before.Most of the scenes are slapdash and so brilliantly set out. Jackson, most of the time, stumbles around the sets without an idea of what his character is about. There is one hell of a lot to Malo and giving the role to a newbie, without proper direction, was a bad decision. De Niro is at his shouty best here; stomping around, hitting and shooting things. Even though it's nice to see him go berserk he just does it too much - poor guy must have needed some lockets afterwards to soothe his throat.Forest Whitaker is brilliant as the drug-addled cop... so good that he actually does appear to have been on something. It was probably needed to get through this rubbish with most of his sanity intact. But it really didn't help the movie any, it just made his lines seem slurred and indistinguishable.If you like any of the actors or cop drama's then I would recommend you to stay away from this pile of diatribe.

Take out all the scenes of coke-snorting, erotic dancing, fast-motion long shots of New York and endless swearing and you'll probably be left with just half an hour. Which would STILL be too long. It's a shapeless mess with lots of well known actors who should know better, being all 'hard' and 'street'. This is just a front, though... the reality is that this is more pantomime than grit. Every time someone whips out a gun, cusses or lets fly with their fists it all feels fake and rehearsed, as if this was a Hollywood executive's idea of a ghetto.. when he'd been living in a mansion at Beverly Hills for all his life.It's staggering to contemplate that this production contains not one, but TWO Oscar winners. Forest Whitaker I can understand... he's second only to Cuba Gooding Jr in the slumming Academy Award winners stake. But Robert De Niro... what a shocker. This is, without a doubt, this worst film I've seen him in. The sad fact is, he lends gravitas to his role in a film with no use for it. And there's barely anything more depressing than a writer trying to script what he thinks is a complex ending, which is about 100 times less intelligent than he thinks it is.Lastly, this movie is known as Crossfire here in the good ol' UK. Perhaps they should have changed it further, and retitled it Misfire. Tee hee, I made a funny... 4/10

With Whitacker and De Niro on his side, is it possible for Curtis Jackson (or "Fiddy" as you might call him) to go wrong? It seems like a sure bet, but the role is too big for Jackson to carry. He's not bad, but he just has not the weight of an established actor to catch your attention. He might know the stories from that neighborhood and he might have helped raise that money, but he also might have bitten more of than he can actually chew.The story is more than ambitious which is crippling at times. Themes are clear, but still get not across as intended. It's a morality tale with a main character that might not be to everyones liking (which does not necessarily have anything to do with the guy playing that character). Some compare this to "Training Day" and there are a few similarities, but it would be unfair to watch this and judge it by that standard.

It's hard to find fault with a Robert DeNiro movie, no matter the budget. We saw him pull of "Mad Dog and Glory" (at least I did) and we saw his chops as a comedian in the Fockers films. But lately, the legend is disintegrating, and here we find a man on auto-pilot, restlessly moping his way through a character he's played countless times before."Freelancers" finds 50 Cent as a young cop who's father is slain by bad cops when he is little. Now on the force himself, Fiddy finds himself taken under the wing of corrupt captain Sarcone (DeNiro) along with other dirty cops like Detective Leurie (Forest Whitaker). Will Fiddy find his father's killer? Will the film end in a shootout? It plays out like a dream you have every night. You know what to expect, and can just about point to the screen when you can expect to see it happen. The script is cut-and-dry, listless, and unsure of if it's trying to make more a point than simply to promote its impressive cast.I would say don't watch it, but you've watched this before, and you'll watch it again, though in a theater and with a couple zeroes added on to the end of the budget. For a low-cost, easy to shoot film, the cast is impressive and the acting is fine, but for the hour and a half spent sitting at home waiting to be surprised, I felt let down.