(Minor spoilers follow.) To me, Vincent D'Onfrio's character symbolizes everything that is wrong with this movie. The character is pure evil, but is presented without any context. What filled him with so much hatred? How did he gain such a powerful position? There's no context to him at all. He's a strictly one-dimensional bad guy. (I should add that Mr. D'Onofrio's acting is fine, but the script gives him nothing to do except be despicable.) On the other side of the equation we have a heroic firefighter who witnesses a horrific, senseless crime, yet lives to tell about it. So of course, he becomes a target himself.
Do I really need to say any more? You've seen lots of movies like this already. You know how it's going to end. When the script calls for him to tell his U.S. marshal girlfriend one quick sentence about firefighting, you know perfectly well that he'll say that line again, during a fire, before the end of the movie. You even know which bad guy will die last when the hero faces the insurmountable odds of ... oh, why bother explaining? You've seen it all before. There's no reason to see it again.
Do I really need to say any more? You've seen lots of movies like this already. You know how it's going to end. When the script calls for him to tell his U.S. marshal girlfriend one quick sentence about firefighting, you know perfectly well that he'll say that line again, during a fire, before the end of the movie. You even know which bad guy will die last when the hero faces the insurmountable odds of ... oh, why bother explaining? You've seen it all before. There's no reason to see it again.