Not quite as funny as "Midnight Run," but what can you do?

In fact, neither of these movies about finding and/or transporting prisoners is funny at all. But when you've got grizzled heroes and black men with a bullseye on their backs, who cares?

Die Old: "16 Blocks"

This breezed through theaters relatively quickly last year, but I recall hearing it was halfway decent. So it came to be in the Netflix queue over the holidays. Our story: Bruce Willis plays a haggard loser of a cop who gets ordered to take a convict (Mos Def) from jail to court to testify in some big case. Sure, Willis is about to go off duty that morning, but he's got two hours to go only 16 blocks. What could happen?

Well, a lot, as it turns out. A bunch of cops who are a wee bit crooked want our man Mos dead, and only Willis can keep him alive as the clock ticks toward the testimony deadline. So we've got the broken man, wise-cracking black guy and a real-time element. Throw in one of our favorite supporting players, David Morse, as the lead bad guy, and it's a recipe for something at least mildly interesting.

And that's about what we get. For a bare-bones concept, the movie delivers a somewhat plausible scenario for why Willis can't get Mr. Def to the courthouse that easily. There's some stupid stuff -- i.e. a hostage situation -- but it's tolerable enough. As for the performances, Willis isn't doing anything special but isn't laughable. Def is actually more than a cartoon dropping one-liners. You actually feel for the guy, although I might not have hit viewers over the head so much with his hopes and dreams.

In short, eminently watchable fare, but rather forgettable once the credits roll.

What, no cameo by former roommate Al Gore?: "U.S. Marshals"

Shhh, shhh ... if you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of Tommy Lee Jones selling his soul.

Actually, given the chunk of change he likely got for this lackluster "sequel" to "The Fugitive," you probably don't have to listen that carefully.

This is a strange movie to start. One, it's a sequel without the main dude. That's a great recipe for success, of course. I mean, just look at "Speed 2." Anyway, with Harrison Ford gone, Jones gets top billing as returning U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard, this time charged with tracking down a mysterious fugitive, Wesley Snipes. It takes a while to figure out what exactly Snipes did to be most wanted. Something about killing a bunch of vampires, I think.

To be honest, this movie takes a while to get going. Oh, there are some decent action scenes, and Jones says all these cute lines. But the plot kind of pokes along for at least an hour. Another guy might say it was nice to see all the pieces slowly come together, but hey, go read that guy's blog.

Even the presence of Robert Downey Jr. doesn't do much for me here. Downey can be great, but his whole "I've got a secret" thing rings hollow. But since it's all been downhill for him since "Weird Science," is that really a surprise?