BEFORE: Denzel Washington carries over from "The Bone Collector", again playing a cop matching wits with a killer. This is going to clear the "Killer" category, except for one film that I'll get to later in the week because of the way the actor linking is shaking down.
THE PLOT: An attorney is terrorized by the criminal he put away years ago when he was a cop.
AFTER: I started this theme back on May 1, with "Twisted", and it's funny that I sort of bookended the chain with two similar (and similarly absurd) films. Both center on cops who are targeted/framed by criminals, where said cops are made to look like criminals + addicts, and have to fight through the haze to find the true killers.
Denzel plays a cop here who later becomes an attorney, but a criminal he puts away breaks out of prison, then fakes his own death, and seeks revenge, framing the cop who humiliated him for a variety of crimes. Killing his nemesis wouldn't be enough satisfaction, because the criminal wants to see him suffer. BUT -
NITPICK POINT: Why does the criminal reveal himself to the cop? Everything he accomplished in his revenge scheme could have been accomplished while remaining in the shadows. Perhaps this is intended as his "fatal mistake" - or perhaps it's a sign of a deranged mind, but it still defies logic.
What this sets us is something like a Batman/Joker relationship - with some debate over who created who. The arrest of the madman advanced the cop's career, but then the cop's success accelerates the madman's madness.
But it's WAY over the top, to the point of being barely believable. And the way in which the cop gets revenge for the revenge is even more far-fetched.
Plus, why is it called "Ricochet"? The term specifically refers to bullets bouncing off of things, and that doesn't happen in the film. Maybe it's a metaphor for events having repercussions, but it's still a strange disconnect.
Also starring John Lithgow (last seen in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"), Kevin Pollak (last seen in "The Whole Ten Yards"), Ice-T (last seen in "Johnny Mnemonic"), Lindsay Wagner, Jesse Ventura (last seen in "Predator"), with a cameo from John Amos.
RATING: 4 out of 10
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