Black Rain

Even at the end of the 1980s, there were many action pictures that would set the standards for the action films of the 1990s. This is one of them.

Released in the sequel bloodbath year of 1989, Black Rain was Ridley Scott's sixth film following such classics as "Alien" and "Blade Runner".

Michael Douglas stars as NYPD homicide Detective Sergeant Nick Conklin. A man with questionable actions as a cop; he captures a Japanese gangster after he commits a bloody double murder in New York.

Nick and his young partner, Charlie (Garcia), are assigned to escort the killer (Yusaku Matsuda) back to Osaka, where they unknowningly hand him over to his fellow gangsters, disguised as cops.

Determined to recapture the man, they team up with an Osaka cop (Ken Takakura). Along the way, Nick recieves help from an American woman (Capshaw) who is an Osaka bartender who apparently knows most of the secrets of the gangsters and feeds them to Nick one at a time.

Ridley seems to be trying to recapture the mood and feel of the street scenes in "Blade Runner" as he takes us on a disorientating trip around a Japan that westerners will not have seen. This culture shock serves only to enhance the cold, ruthless violence of the Osaka gangs who strike without mercy and without expressions on their faces!

As they try to track him down, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by compromising and playing the game a more Japanese way.

Likewise, the Japanese police, who were at first wary and critical of their western counterparts, learn that some of the rule bending methods employed by their American colleagues do pay off.

Like many 'fish out of water' movies, Black rain pays off with the evolution of the relationships between the visitors and those on their home turf.

Ridley Scott really did elevate this late 80's cop buddy movie way above the thin script and premise and, as many critics agree, give the movie an apparent depth that just wan't in the original script.