If "Striking Distance" were a book, it could be called a good read. Instead, it's a painless watch.

Striking Distance is an exhausted reassembly of bits and pieces from all the other movies that are more or less exactly like this one.

How far can Bruce Willis' grin and biceps carry a cop thriller full of familiar turns? Striking Distance answers: pretty far, as long as no one asks too much of the plot.

The hard truth is that Bruce Willis is just one of many faces going forth here as gamely as possible. And yet for its crude and compromised stitching, "Striking Distance" remains weird, wobbly and eminently watchable.