By the time "Money Train" finally gets to the big, climactic train robbery/chase/crash it's been building toward for nearly two hours, you may have given up.
And that's too bad since this extended and exciting, if ludicrous sequence is about all the film's got to give you for your six bucks.
Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, who demonstrated they have chemistry together in the rowdy and raunchy comedy "White Men Can't Jump," are teamed again, this time playing foster brothers who work as New York MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) cops.
But their on-screen bonding is impaired by a lamer-than-lame screenplay for this action-thriller exercise. While they obviously enjoy working together, their bickering banter this time out is more shrill and less witty, and gets tiresome rather quickly.
When they aren't yelling at each other, Snipes and Harrelson are constantly at odds with their obnoxious, power-mad, racist chief (Robert Blake, doing a scenery-chewing caricature). And the main focus of their work is to capture a toll booth robber (Chris Cooper) who likes to set his victims on fire.
They also become romantic rivals over their alluring new partner, played by the terrific Jennifer Lopez — though she only has eyes for Snipes. (You can tell by the way Lopez and Snipes punch each other in the boxing ring.)
But the central plot has Snipes repeatedly saving Harrelson's bacon over his enormous gambling debts, which eventually prompts Harrelson to consider robbing the "Money Train," a nickname for the subway car that carries the MTA's daily receipts.
His plan is to sneak aboard the train on New Year's Eve, take it down the track to an escape route and run off with a few bags of money, just a million or two.
Snipes will have none of it, of course. He even pulls $15,000 out of his own savings so Harrelson can pay off the mob. But when Harrelson is robbed of the $15,000 on the subway by an elderly female pickpocket, followed by another fight with Blake that ends up costing both brothers their badges, Snipes writes Harrelson off.
Feeling sorry for himself, Harrelson plots his New Year's robbery alone, and, of course, it's up to Snipes to stop him.
"Money Train" is certainly '90s by-the-numbers stuff, violent, preposterous and less funny than it thinks it is.
The two stars do manage to get off a couple of amusing riffs and Snipes gets to show off some of his kung fu fighting skills, but that's hardly enough to rescue what amounts to a real mess.
"Money Train" is rated R for violence, sex, nudity, profanity and vulgarity.