"I texted a friend of mine from childhood, I haven't seen in like 15 years, we saw this together when we were probably 12, in 1998, and I had to tell him.
It's a little startling to see the contrast in 90's movies, and now, and the contrast between the movie I saw in 1998, and watching it 20 plus years later. It's sharply made, but so cliched and ham fisted at times, at the time, I would have thought it was an accurate reflection of a SWAT negotiator. The rebel but good cop, the intro with a hostage scene, the eruption into violence, the obvious red herrings and villain. The buddy cop bond.
The idea that one could take a roomful of hostages at gunpoint, terrorize a building, shoot at police officers, and be absolved, simply because he was right about being framed for a murder, takes a perhaps insurmountable suspension of belief.
This was, I think especially seen in the 80's and 90's, the destruction caused by the hero being eradicated by the fact he was in fact wronged. When we talk about movies and white male heroes (and cops) though obviously Jackson is black, being vehicles, and reflections of entitlement, and maybe even abuse, the cop is never wrong, if he was first right.
Such a piece of 90's entertainment, and watching it again as an adult was almost as fun, as the memories of watching it as a kid"
jacksons character had them dead to rights of cpurse i figure they would have took the shot to make sure he never left the building 
