The tone of the thing didn’t pander to the usual market for films like that. The main problem with it was that it had more ideas than it knew what to do with.
It was a derivative mess cobbled together by Bigelow`s slick commercial style, a film of stale ideas assembled by people whose only interest was in chase scenes that were `kinetic` but couldn`t hide the fact that the characters were uninteresting. The cliches were piled high in this one—eviol white cops, rapper who speaks truth to power-cum-civil rights leader, second-hand Blade Runner `Dark!` visuals, junkie heroes. It was pure torture to sit through. But then I think Cameron and Bigelow are hugely overrated, empty-headed filmmakers.