What can you say about Denzel Washington? He owns two Oscars and should probably own more. He can play any one, from a lawyer to a military officer; from an early leader in the antiapartheid movement to a high school football coach, teaching his players lessons about life. He also likes to play cops. From "Ricochet" to "The Bone Collector" to his Academy Award winning performance in "Training Day," Washington looks like he belongs behind the badge. As Chief of Police Matt Whitlock, he finds himself keeping one step ahead of his colleagues when all evidence of a double murder seems to point to him.

Whitlock is currently engaged in an affair with his old high school sweetheart (Lathan), who finds herself in a loveless marriage with her abusive husband (Cain). At the same time, Matt is still pining for his wife (Mendes) who is in the process of serving him divorce papers. He is also still basking in the glow of a major drug bust and keeps opening his safe to show off the almost $400,000 he confiscated. A very hard to believe chain of events put Whitlock on a quest to not only save his career, but his life as well.

It's hard to point out some of the plot lines I disagreed with in the film without giving away some of the story. Suffice it to say that, lucky for Whitlock, none of the other cops on his force are as smart as he is. Even Mendes, who, we are told, has just been made a detective in Miami, seems a little slow in her crime solving abilities. Or maybe she just feels sorry for Matt. Either way, as someone who grew up in Florida, I'm starting to worry about law enforcement in the Sunshine State. If I sound jaded, it's because I expected so much more from a re-teaming of Washington and director Franklin. Their first project, "Devil In a Blue Dress," was a great example of story telling. Unfortunately, Franklin asks his audience to sometimes suspend belief in the many twists that pop up here. Such as? Let's start with Cain being a former professional football player, just cut, who is now living in a small house and working as a security guard. I'd like to think he might have saved a few of those NFL bucks so he didn't have to go back to the minimum wage world within a month. Thank goodness the cast delivers.

Washington is his usual strong self. I think this guy could read the phone book and make it interesting. Both Lathan and Mendes are fine in their performances, and Cain, probably best known for the "Lois and Clark" television program, shows a nasty side I never would have thought Superman possessed. Extra kudos to Billingsley, who plays the towns medical examiner. He and Washington have a great banter and their scenes together are among the film's highlights. In fact, it's Billingsley that earns the film an extra half-star. On a scale of zero to four, I give "Out of Time"