Let me start to say that Ridley Scott is a great and innovative visual director, his visual compositions are meticulously planned, and then, beautifully designed to the big screen, but unfortunately his handling of the storytelling and the direction to his actors never were as good.
"Black Rain" was made after the critical and box office flop of Scott's previous crime / thriller film, "Someone to Watch Over Me" ('87) that tanked Tom Berenger's career as a leading man in Hollywood, and was partially influenced by Michael Cimino's "Year of the Dragon" ('85) and Walter Hill's "Red Heat" ('88), especially the latter, with improbable partners and cross-cultural clashes within the 'buddy cop' sub-genre that went popular after the box office hit of "48 Hrs." ('82). Throwing in the 'tech-baroque' visuals which tries to emulate Scott's own masterpiece "Blade Runner" ('82), with even the same initials B.R., and the end result was "Black Rain", a tepid cop thriller that owns more to style than to substance.
The screenplay, written by Craig Bolotin & Warren Lewis, is generic and shallow, full of cliché-ridden situations, plot contrivances and devices which only serve the purpose to move the movie along for the over 2 hours mark. There aren't much of surprises or twists and becomes way predictable half the way, if it wasn't for the visual fanfare, the production values (from a $30 million budget) and the A-list cast, it could have been one of those action / cop thrillers, cheaper by the dozen, made every year to limited theather releases or even direct-to-video.
Produced by Stanley R. Jaffe & Sherry Lansing in association with the leading star, Michael Douglas, it was obvious that the movie would be made around his character with total creative control over his performance, character's actions and manneirisms in which Douglas reminds us viewers almost in every frame of the film. Nick Conklin, the roguish, but not that bad NYC police detective, is everywhere chewing the scenery off with his hellraiser attitude, greasy mullet and sweary words, only somewhat controlled by his much younger partner, Charlie Vincent (Andy Garcia, in an early co-leading role after "The Untouchables", but before "The Godfather - Part III" & "Internal Affairs") who overacts in every scene he was in and his fate in the film was predictable since the moment he steps in Osaka and famed Japanese actor, Ken Takakura ("The Yakuza"), enters the plot. Michael Douglas' Conklin is the "bad cop" to Andy Garcia's Vincent "good cop" gimmick (spoofed the very same year by Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell in "Tango & Cash" and in lots of action films that came before and after "Black Rain").
Mrs. Spielberg, Kate Capshaw was hired based on her most famous film, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" ('84), which the opening is set in a Shanghai Nightclub. Her character here (Joyce) shares the same background as Willie Scott, except for the screaming. She's classy, gorgeous, mysterious and surprisingly good in her limited screen time, playing the 'femme fatale' type to the 'neo-noir' tone of the film, without being... fatal at all. In a matter of fact, her badly written character was totally unnecessary, just to give some female vibe to a men's film and for Douglas to have the usual screenkiss.
Kudos to the deceased Japanese actor, Yusaku Matsuda playing the stylish villain, Koji Sato. Matsuda was suffering from bladder cancer, but choose to make the film anyway, dying just weeks after the production wrapped. "Black Rain" is dedicated to his memory.
The cinematography by Jan de Bont ("Flesh+Blood", "Robocop"), before his turning into director ("Speed", "Twister") is astonishingly stylish and classy, setting the noir-ish tone of the film to 'tech-noir', a combination between the old style and the dark modernism of Japan in the 80's, but like in every Ridley Scott's film, it's hard to tell how much the cinematographer really contributes to the film's overall visual style, when in fact it's the (only) expertise of Scott as a filmmaker.
Great orchestration by Hans Zimmer, in his first collaboration with Ridley Scott, being the most famous the acclaimed "Gladiator" where Zimmer was nominated for Best Original Score. The soundtrack also includes "Living on the Edge of the Night", played at the end credits, and "Laser Man" performed by two music icons, respectively, Iggy Pop and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
In short, "Black Rain" is a moderately entertaining 'popcorn' action / thriller, disguised as 'artsy', which divided the fans, as some idolize it as some kind of "Blade Runner" set in the 80's, others find it superficial, overrated and overhyped. It lacks the narrative complexity, the characters' development and even the philosophical side of "Blade Runner", so it's better to be watched as a sophisticated, but generic / 'all look and no heart', B-film. It looks more like a Tony Scott's film ("Top Gun", "Days of Thunder"), Ridley's younger brother, than a film directed by the filmmaker who gave us "Alien" ('79) and "Blade Runner" ('82).
As a footnote, the late great Rutger Hauer (which basically played a similar character in "Wanted Dead or Alive", with mullet included) could have been so much better in the Nick Conklin part, as Ridley envisioned his 'Roy Batty' in the lead role, before Douglas came in as a producer and demanded the lead. Rutger could have enhanced and elevated the charm of "Black Rain" as a solo cult-film, instead of being a hybrid of a mainstream big budget 'wanna-be artsy' production with the fresh Oscar winner superstar Michael Douglas, when its foundations are purely and totally from a B-film.
I rate it a 7.5, with a decrease to 7 in the IMDb rating, due to be extremely over-hyped.
"Black Rain" was made after the critical and box office flop of Scott's previous crime / thriller film, "Someone to Watch Over Me" ('87) that tanked Tom Berenger's career as a leading man in Hollywood, and was partially influenced by Michael Cimino's "Year of the Dragon" ('85) and Walter Hill's "Red Heat" ('88), especially the latter, with improbable partners and cross-cultural clashes within the 'buddy cop' sub-genre that went popular after the box office hit of "48 Hrs." ('82). Throwing in the 'tech-baroque' visuals which tries to emulate Scott's own masterpiece "Blade Runner" ('82), with even the same initials B.R., and the end result was "Black Rain", a tepid cop thriller that owns more to style than to substance.
The screenplay, written by Craig Bolotin & Warren Lewis, is generic and shallow, full of cliché-ridden situations, plot contrivances and devices which only serve the purpose to move the movie along for the over 2 hours mark. There aren't much of surprises or twists and becomes way predictable half the way, if it wasn't for the visual fanfare, the production values (from a $30 million budget) and the A-list cast, it could have been one of those action / cop thrillers, cheaper by the dozen, made every year to limited theather releases or even direct-to-video.
Produced by Stanley R. Jaffe & Sherry Lansing in association with the leading star, Michael Douglas, it was obvious that the movie would be made around his character with total creative control over his performance, character's actions and manneirisms in which Douglas reminds us viewers almost in every frame of the film. Nick Conklin, the roguish, but not that bad NYC police detective, is everywhere chewing the scenery off with his hellraiser attitude, greasy mullet and sweary words, only somewhat controlled by his much younger partner, Charlie Vincent (Andy Garcia, in an early co-leading role after "The Untouchables", but before "The Godfather - Part III" & "Internal Affairs") who overacts in every scene he was in and his fate in the film was predictable since the moment he steps in Osaka and famed Japanese actor, Ken Takakura ("The Yakuza"), enters the plot. Michael Douglas' Conklin is the "bad cop" to Andy Garcia's Vincent "good cop" gimmick (spoofed the very same year by Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell in "Tango & Cash" and in lots of action films that came before and after "Black Rain").
Mrs. Spielberg, Kate Capshaw was hired based on her most famous film, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" ('84), which the opening is set in a Shanghai Nightclub. Her character here (Joyce) shares the same background as Willie Scott, except for the screaming. She's classy, gorgeous, mysterious and surprisingly good in her limited screen time, playing the 'femme fatale' type to the 'neo-noir' tone of the film, without being... fatal at all. In a matter of fact, her badly written character was totally unnecessary, just to give some female vibe to a men's film and for Douglas to have the usual screenkiss.
Kudos to the deceased Japanese actor, Yusaku Matsuda playing the stylish villain, Koji Sato. Matsuda was suffering from bladder cancer, but choose to make the film anyway, dying just weeks after the production wrapped. "Black Rain" is dedicated to his memory.
The cinematography by Jan de Bont ("Flesh+Blood", "Robocop"), before his turning into director ("Speed", "Twister") is astonishingly stylish and classy, setting the noir-ish tone of the film to 'tech-noir', a combination between the old style and the dark modernism of Japan in the 80's, but like in every Ridley Scott's film, it's hard to tell how much the cinematographer really contributes to the film's overall visual style, when in fact it's the (only) expertise of Scott as a filmmaker.
Great orchestration by Hans Zimmer, in his first collaboration with Ridley Scott, being the most famous the acclaimed "Gladiator" where Zimmer was nominated for Best Original Score. The soundtrack also includes "Living on the Edge of the Night", played at the end credits, and "Laser Man" performed by two music icons, respectively, Iggy Pop and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
In short, "Black Rain" is a moderately entertaining 'popcorn' action / thriller, disguised as 'artsy', which divided the fans, as some idolize it as some kind of "Blade Runner" set in the 80's, others find it superficial, overrated and overhyped. It lacks the narrative complexity, the characters' development and even the philosophical side of "Blade Runner", so it's better to be watched as a sophisticated, but generic / 'all look and no heart', B-film. It looks more like a Tony Scott's film ("Top Gun", "Days of Thunder"), Ridley's younger brother, than a film directed by the filmmaker who gave us "Alien" ('79) and "Blade Runner" ('82).
As a footnote, the late great Rutger Hauer (which basically played a similar character in "Wanted Dead or Alive", with mullet included) could have been so much better in the Nick Conklin part, as Ridley envisioned his 'Roy Batty' in the lead role, before Douglas came in as a producer and demanded the lead. Rutger could have enhanced and elevated the charm of "Black Rain" as a solo cult-film, instead of being a hybrid of a mainstream big budget 'wanna-be artsy' production with the fresh Oscar winner superstar Michael Douglas, when its foundations are purely and totally from a B-film.
I rate it a 7.5, with a decrease to 7 in the IMDb rating, due to be extremely over-hyped.