Black Rain

If you pull it-you better use it.

Black Rain is directed by Ridley Scott and written by Craig Bolotin and Warren Lewis. It stars Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, Ken Takakura, Kate Capshaw, Yusaku Matsuda and Tomisaburo Wakayama. Music is by Hans Zimmer and cinematography by Jan de Bont.

After New York cops Nick Conklin (Douglas) and Charlie Vincent (Garcia) arrest a sword wielding psychopath named Sato Koji (Matsuda), they are tasked with escorting him back to Osaka in Japan. From here they are plunged into a war that is brewing in the Japanese underworld.

You see there's a war going on here and they don't take no prisoners.

Welcome to Blade Runner's younger brother, Black Rain, a Ridley Scott film I feel has never received the credit it deserves. Viewing from the outside it looked like one of those 1980s cop movies, one where the main cop is washed up and perched on the edge of oblivion, his partner his sanity and voice of reason. However, Scott (brought in late to direct when Paul Verhoeven bailed) wasn't interested in the normalities of the cop drama, he saw the potential for cross continent culture clash and the chance to bring his visual skills to the fore.

Yep, it's the big neon glitter of Osaka and the grime and dime of New York that is the big draw here, but characterisations are still rich for the drama, with Scott taking plenty of time to set up the lead protagonist. We know Conklin's troubles, we know how tight his friendship is with Charlie, and by the time things go grim and dour in Osaka we understand just why Conklin plunges head first into a do or die situation.

Visually Scott infuses the picture with cramped locales, steamy streets, industrial wastelands and blood red suns, while his lead character is an unshaven trench coat wearer who still manages to look devilishly cool. It's perhaps the drawing of Osaka that is the most impressive, for it's an alien creation to us as much as it obviously is to Conklin, the ignorance gap between A...

The fact that the words "produced in association with Michael Douglas" appear on the credits before the name of the director (Ridley Scott) tells us much of what we need to know about this crime thriller. It is a project for and about Michael Douglas and it isn't very good. He ("Conklin") is a New York cop, and a bent one at that. Together with his oppo "Charlie" (Andy Garcia) he witnesses a Yakuza killing in a restaurant. Apprehending the culprit, they are tasked with repatriating him to Japan but manage to cock up the prisoner delivery when the plane lands. Determined to track down his miscreant escapee, he now proceeds to treat the local law enforcement with an arrogant disdain that ought to have found him neatly at the end of a Samurai sword. Of course, though, he is the hero - so the plot gradually swivels the characterisations round so he starts to look the decent, intuitive police officer whom the incompetent, hapless, Tokyo officers have needed all along. Luckily, Garcia gets to take an early bath which leaves us with a very weak supporting cast, a few scenes from a completely unnecessary Kate Capshaw ("Joyce") before an ending that made this legendary and lethal criminal fraternity look little more dangerous that a Californian fraternity house. Someone clearly decided that the dark and dingy look was in; the lighting is on half power for much of this, and what action scenes there are merely serve to further augment the star's "hard man" image but do little to add any depth to this really average story. Hans Zimmer's lacklustre score also seems to have come straight out of an episode of "Miami Vice", too. This is just poor, derivative and instantly forgettable.

Well made neo-noir thriller featuring great performances by Douglas, Garcia and Takakura with special mention to Yûsaku Matsuda who worked on this despite dying with bladder cancer (and he was only 40 years old). Not top shelf work compared to other Ridley Scott movies but it is shot well (courtesy also to DP Jan de Bont). 4.0/5

Black Rain is one of those cop movies that's just downright cool. Unfortunately, it became dated quite quickly, but if you can look past that it's very much worth a watch. Ridley Scott knows how to make a good movie. And Michael Douglas certainly knows how to act.

First things first: My review is detailed and long, but it contains NO MAJOR SPOILERS, you can still enjoy the plot unfolding after reading it.

I think Black Rain (BR) is almost criminally underrated within the buddy cop and dramatic noir genre.reading it.

The "underrated" moniker also applies because most of the cast and other key people involved (Sir Ridley Scott, Michael Douglas, music score by a (at the time) young and still largely unknown Hans Zimmer) may be better known today for all their later achievements.

BR feels like lost in time with a current TMDB rating of only 60+%, hidden behind all their other successes and awards.

You don't have to take my word for this. Michael Douglas himself stated in later interviews that BR to this day remains one of his favorite movies he was involved in (and he certainly enjoyed a long and storied movie career, including Academy Awards).

While BR, at its core, is a classic 1980s cop movie (you can clearly see the movie is from another era when people openly smoke on a passenger plane...) with a pretty straightforward and simple plot, it was very much ahead of its time in many ways in my opinion:

Shot on location in Japan, with many Japanese actors involved. All of them big stars in their home country at the time (especially Ken Takakura, but also Yusaku Matsuda and Tomisaburo Wakayama). They are even allowed to speak Japanese, how refreshing. Given how badly the Hollywood movie machine has treated Asia as one big pool of people (as if the entire continent was one country) in many blockbusters (even to this very day), this still feels refreshing and authentic.

Strangely enough, the movie was labeled as "racist" or at least condescending towards Japan and its citizens by some Western movie critics at the time. These critics don't seem to be able to distinguish between Michael Douglas' movie character (Nick, a NYPD cop with obvious flaws and issues) and the movie as a fictional piece of art. Just be...

"Black Rain" is in the overly familiar territory Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood used to inhabit during the 1970's and 1980's and as you would expect the old assortment of cliches are all here, especially those surrounding Michael Douglas's tough and uncompromising character Nick Conklin. The very notion of a hot headed American cop arriving in Japan and enthusiastically creating all manner of chaos by repeatedly eschewing the political and social protocols and conventions of the country and stubbornly bulldozing his way to a successful resolution of the case is also a common pattern of unorthodox behaviour to be expected. However, Japan is a visually diverting location at all times and Ridley Scott is on top form when it comes to bringing all the action scenes vividly to life on the screen. This film is frequently comprised of cliches and yet the final result is nevertheless invigorating and entertaining.