In this action thriller, Denzel Washington plays Nick Styles, the assistant district attorney of L.A. The film opens in his early days as a cop on the L.A.P.D. During a carnival, master criminal Earl Talbot Blake creates a scene after a botched drug deal. Styles and Blake confront each other, during which Blake is wounded by Styles and later sent to prison. Seven years later, Blake escapes from prison during a parole board hearing to carry out his revenge against Styles, and what follows is a violent series of events that destroys Styles' career. This sets the stage for one last bloody duel between Styles and Blake.
—Stephen Currence
Rookie Los Angeles cop Nick Styles is at a Los Angeles street fair, where hit man Earl Talbot Blake pulls a double cross on some drug dealers, killing four men. Minutes later, Nick shoots Blake in the knee, and Blake is grabbed by Nick's partner and best friend Larry Doyle. Nick becomes the focus of the media, thanks to an amateur cameraman's footage of Nick disarming Blake. Over the next few years, Nick's career takes off: he's offered a job in the district attorney's office, and his hip media style keeps him in the public eye. Nick marries a woman named Alice and they go on to have two daughters named Lisa and Monica. While Blake is in prison, he vows revenge on Nick. When Blake comes up for parole, he orchestrates a bloody escape -- which includes faking his own death. Blake doesn't want Nick dead. He just wants Nick to suffer in spades. He wants to ruin Nick's life as completely as possible, and then have Nick sent to prison for murder so Nick will know how Blake feels. Blake begins his vendetta by killing city councilman U. B. Farris and planting evidence to make everyone think Nick and Farris are running an underage pornography ring. Blake then kidnaps Nick, forces him to take drugs and have sex with a prostitute, videotapes the whole thing, and then releases Nick. Nick tells everyone that it was Blake who kidnapped him, but everyone refuses to believe Nick because everyone thinks Blake is dead. That night, Blake breaks into Nick's house, and makes a threatening videotape with Lisa, Monica, and an ax in it, but Blake didn't actually do anything to Lisa and Monica. Nick is then suspended from the DA's office, with everyone thinking that Nick is mentally ill because he keeps saying that Blake is still alive. Blake then begins the final phase of his vendetta -- he kills Larry and frames Nick for it. Blake also links Nick to misappropriation of public funds, specifically, the funds he's supposed to be raising for a children's center in a building at the base of the Watts tower. Nick is forced to turn to his childhood friend, gang leader Odessa, for help in clearing his name and stopping Blake once and for all.
—Todd Baldridge
This movie centers on two men Nick Styles and Earl Talbot Blake. Styles is a cop who also aspires to be a lawyer, and Blake is a psychotic killer. Blake is hired to rip off some drug dealers which he does but Styles is there and has his gun trained on Blake. When Blake grabs a hostage, Styles out wits him and arrests him. Blake would be sent to prison. Because someone with a video camera was there, Styles is all over the media and touted as a hero. Styles would then be promoted to detective and a few years later would join the D.A.'s office. Blake only thinks of one thing, getting back at Styles. Seven years later at his parole hearing Blake tries to escape and is killed or so they think. Blake tries to make Styles appear to be crooked. And when he reveals himself to Styles, and when he lets Styles go, and Styles tells everyone about Blake, they all think he is crazy. And when Blake frames him, Styles resorts to a desperate act to prove his innocence.
—rcs0411@yahoo.com
A District Attorney is terrorized by the criminal he put away years ago when he was a cop.
—monkeykingma
SYNOPSIS