Amazon.com video review:
Cultures clash (and so, occasionally, do clichés) in this
1989 stylefest from director Ridley Scott. Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia
are New York cops who grab a Japanese mobster and take him back to
Osaka--only to lose him there. When they're forced to track him down,
Douglas's knuckles-and-know-how approach to crime-fighting puts him at
odds with his Japanese handlers. Beside eschewing police brutality,
their code of honor also
induces guilt because Douglas has succumbed to the occasional shifty
tendency in the past. Despite some strong action sequences and Scott's
trademark look of neon reflected on wet streets, it begins to drag and
ends up exactly where you expect it to--with Douglas chin-to-chin with
chief bad guy Yusaku Matsuda. No one plays a flawed hero better than
Douglas but this one tends to be by the numbers. --Marshall Fine
Amazon.com Essentials:
A guilty pleasure if ever there was one, Black Rain is
a ridiculously entertaining thriller by Ridley Scott (Alien), starring
Michael Douglas as a tough New York cop who--along with his partner
(Andy Garcia)--goes to Japan to deliver a local mobster. When the
latter escapes, Douglas's brand of gonzo crime fighting rubs his
Japanese hosts the wrong way. Slick, mechanistic, and absurd, the film
is all surface action and attitude (not to mention Scott's incredibly
busy, trademark art direction); and one can get lost in the sheer
indulgence of it. However, if you can buy Douglas as an iconoclastic
lawman, you can buy anything else here, including the notion of Kate
Capshaw as a blonde escort highly desired by Japanese
businessmen. --Tom Keogh
