BLACK RAIN (1989) - **1/2"I usually get kissed before I get fucked."[/i][/size]
This is a movie trying to be two things at once, and not really succeeding at either. On one hand director Sir Ridley Scott and star Michael Douglas create a would-be popcorn-friendly picture about a maverick American cop over in Japan, while attempting to use that genre template to make observations about the mundane rituals (with occasional thrills and danger) shared by a profession seperated by an ocean, with cultural barriers making such nuances lost in translation. A more cynical approach would be that BLACK RAIN was pretentious genre junk in denial of its nature, and never escaping it. Both interpretations satisfy me.
But BLACK RAIN sure tries its goddamn best to be something
more than the uninspired drone DIRTY HARRY clones which populated much 1970s and 80s action cinema...and yet ultimately that's what it ends up becoming. Remember that classic western narrative shared by SHANE and UNFORGIVEN where the violent outlaw tries to change his ways (i.e. becoming civilized) but he can't or is forced inevitably to go back to his dayjob? That analogy works also for BLACK RAIN, except RAIN wasn't that much of a gunman in the first place, and probably would have gotten smoked out in the final shooout.
The trouble in BLACK for me trickles down from the very beginning, when Douglas is introduced on a motorcycle wearing shades and leather jacket. Now look Douglas is a pretty darn good actor, and as producer he was behind quality shit like Michael Crichton's thriller COMA and of course ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. I guess after he won his Oscar for WALL STREET and made money off Glenn Close stalking his ass, Doulgas used his clout to kickass and chew bubble gum. This only adds to my pet hypothesis that all great actors, no matter how self-important or high and mighty they are at their craft, all desire at one point or another to play a badass at the movies.
But that get-up in the first place is such a stale insulting cliche, a lazy way to get over a "rebel" character. Only a physically charismatic badass could pull that shit off,
and yeah Douglas is no Steve McQueen. I guess BLACK RAIN wanted me to go "
hey, who's that cool amigo?", but instead I uttered: "
hey, who's that douchebag?" That's not a good start, especially since we're supposed to sympathize with the guy after we learn that he's bleeding alimony money. I guess I could, if he showed more responsible financial management skills. I mean look at his apartment.
Now a mark-up from that egotrip is when he and his junior partner Andy Garcia...and before I go ahead, remember when the Cuban-born Garcia used to play Sicilians? I mean BLACK RAIN, THE UNTOUCHABLES, friggin THE GODFATHER PART III, etc. I always thought that was odd, I mean what do Cubans and Sicilians share besides Catholicism, slick hair stereotyping, high cholesterol, and escaping an impoverished island?
Douglas and Garcia are at this restaurant and they see the local Mafia dining with some Japanese guys when our Yakuza villain Sato (Yusaku Matsuda) busts in the joint with his boys. For mysterious reasons which the plot will explain later, Sato stabs the Japanese to death with cold efficiency. I like how he makes sure everyone in the cafe see him, and the Mafia boss restrains his henchmen from getting involved. I mean the Mob is known for their public assassinations, but Sato one-ups them and they got intimidated. Shit, can you blame them? But I guess Sato didn't plan on cops eating at the joint, nor thought out a good strategy because Douglas and Garcia quickly apprehend him. A great touch is when they're escorting their prisoners back to Tokyo, and hand him over to the authorities after they have him sign some papers. Then the
real authorities come by, after Sato already made his escape, they chatise Douglas for being so stupid and incompetent, much less putting his John Hancock on some insurance forms.
That's clever and yet so true. If the situation was reversed, we Americans too would be laughing at the Japanese cops for falling for such an obvious-looking trick. I mean quite frankly to us Yanks like Douglas, the Japanese written language looks like random gibberish, so you can't blame him for being deceived like he was. But he still comes off foolish, and effectively BLACK RAIN is Douglas staying to catch this guy. Now we get a time-honored tradition in such stranger-in-strange-land stories, where Douglas and Garcia meet a Tokyo copper, the legendary Japanese actor Ken Takakura. Since Takakura goes about his iconic stoic persona, Douglas assumes the guy can't speak English, and curses him out with ethnic slurs. Yeah, you already know the punchline. Now what's funny, but not in a good way, is when Doulgas goes Clint Eastwood on foreign turf far away from his jurisdiction, why the Tokyo police simply didn't kick his ass back to New York? Let's admit it: If a Japanese cop without a badge was wrecking havoc in NYC, what the hell you think the NYPD would do?
Or that nonsense of when Douglas
lectures Takakura about counterfeit money.
What the hell? Look, I don't know much about the Tokyo Police force, but I assume they're competent and knowledgeable about such things, and I'm especially certain that a senior detective like Takakura would know about such a things. I don't exactly or necessarily demand total logic in my action cinema, but this movie is sorta insulting
mine.
Of course all this was supposedly topical-intentional. Now some of you kids might be too young, but in the 1980s we Americans had this whole beef against Japan for taking over both American culture and commerce because of Nintendo and several Japanese corporations gobbling up American companies at the time. This was also the basis for those novels where Japan or technology stemming from the Land of the Rising Sun would dominate our future. Anyone ever wondered how the same people who preach that unchecked capitalism solves everything, also bitch when countries do to us what we usually do (or did) to them? Same people who argue for no taxes or tariffs to hamper commerce, but never turn down a bailout or a tax cut. If you preach globalization, you die by it. Guys, you all can't have it both ways. Besides twenty years later, it's funny looking back on how we really overreacted, for Japan's "invasion" amounted to manga clogging up book stores, saturday morning cartoons that the kids love, and disturbing hentai pornography.
Point is BLACK RAIN tried to capitalize on our cultural paranoia, while bridging this great xenophobic gap of the Reagan Decade by having Garcia and Takakura croon Ray Charles in karaoke. I still can't decide if this sequence is amusing because it's funny, or because it's so silly. Is there any difference? Still, it's nice to see Takakura actually loosen up for once, which BLACK seems to be the exception in his filmography I've seen so far.
I just don't get BLACK RAIN. Like any Ridley Scott-shot film it's visually stunning (he probably masturbated to the endless BLADE RUNNER Neon lights) and well-produced. Like any action movie lighted by Director of Photography Jan DeBont (DIE HARD, director of SPEED) the action is real professional and straight to business. The acting is satisfying or at least appropriate, Hell this is the sort of movie I should quite enjoy,
and yet I can't give a damn about BLACK RAIN. It's not a bad picture by any means, so why? That's the thing, I don't know why.
Sure Douglas and his character isn't compelling, but that's not necessarily a requirement for that genre. The action is decently exciting, but nothing memorable. Kate Chapshaw (who isn't much of an actress in the first place) has a useless part as Douglas' guide, but she wouldn't be the first irrelevant woman character in an actioneer. Also she's part of a halfbaked, halfassed romantic subplot with Douglas that goes absolutely nowhere. There's no real nuances to be found here outside of the acknowledgment that Japan and America contrast in tongue and social expectations.
Well no shit Sherlock. But I did learn from BLACK RAIN to never go alone in chasing into a street alley after some motorcycle-riding Yakuza thugs swinging some sharp Katanas. Buddy, your jacket aint worth losing some height.
I'm reminded of another such Hollywood-star-goes-to-Tokyo movie helmed by a respected director also with Takakura, and much better. The late Sydney Pollack's THE YAKUZA with Robert Mitchum is a quality macho melodrama where you care about the characters and stakes, and more than that you actually get
something out of it. If BLACK RAIN was penned by guys who act like they've ver been to Japan, YAKUZA was part-scripted by the legendary Paul Schrader and his brother Leonard (who actually lived in Japan). With YAKUZA, you get the inevitable culture clash, but in their own ways Mitchum and Takakura always respected each other, and ultimately Mitchum goes further by giving humble honor back according to Takakura's traditions. When in Rome...
BLACK RAIN tries that at times, but its restrained by its by-the-numbers plotting mentality and obviously never goes as far or ever had the courage like YAKUZA. I mean we initially learn that Douglas is haunted by bribery charges back in New York, then we find out he actually
did steal money from a crime investigation. Takakura admonishes him for disrespecting not himself, but his partner...good stuff. I mean BLACK could have had a nice subtext about a self-righteous policeman restoring some form of honor and self-respect back to himself. I say
could have because the whole Hollywood ending with the plates
nukes the whole point of that theme.
If you must check out BLACK RAIN, outside of it being on television or you're a Scottphile, then it's for Sato.
Interesting if sad fact: Matsuda was famous in Japan as a television actor playing (funny enough) cops. BLACK RAIN was supposed to be his international breakthrough when he contracted bladder cancer, and died shortly after completing RAIN. A pity because being exotic with his straddling of being both sane and psychotic, or a rational archetype gangster just amping up the crazyness to screw with his street rivals, he probably would have had a decent career in Hollywood as the call-to Japanese villain/henchman/etc. in actioneers and thrillers.
I mean Matsuda is awesome especially in the climax in the Japanese farmhouse. He's gathered all the Yakuza bosses so he could eliminate them all in one clean coup d'etat. He had invited them under a false pretense of performing the apologizing ritual of
yubitsume, where he would cut off his little pinkie. As the tension builds, you keep expecting for the moment when Sato fakes out and blows away his superiors. You keep waiting, and waiting, and then....
crunch, he chops it off.
He's got'em where he wants them, and yet he still goes ahead with the ritual, even though he probably didn't need to. Now that's a detail of dedication that would have been welcomed in THE YAKUZA.