#18 - Black Rain
Ridley Scott, 1989
A pair of New York police detectives arrest a Yakuza clan member and must extradite him back to Tokyo.
Legendary journeyman Ridley Scott takes on the cop movie with
Black Rain, a film that sees Michael Douglas's slightly corrupt but generally okay detective arrest a ruthless Yakuza member (Yusaku Matsuda) after Matsuda murders a couple of rivals in broad daylight. Of course, things are not that simple as Matsuda must be extradited back to his native Japan, so naturally it falls to Douglas and his partner (Andy Garcia) to fly all the way to Tokyo in order to have him processed. However, it's not long before Matsuda escapes their custody and the American duo are forced to co-operate with the local cops (as well as having Ken Takakura's assistant inspector be assigned to mind them). It's a simple enough set-up - almost too simple, really, as it runs through a pretty standard narrative for this kind of film. Obstructive superiors, mismatched partners, and so forth. Even the decision to set the film in Japan doesn't yield much distinction - I still couldn't help but be reminded of Sydney Pollack's
The Yakuza for reasons that go beyond the obvious similarities involving an American traveling to Japan and going up against gangsters.
While
Black Rain flounders a bit during its first half, it picks up soon enough. Douglas shows off his usual brand of crusty charisma in a fairly straightforward cowboy cop kind of role, while Garcia functions as his more happy-go-lucky partner. Kate Capshaw pops up in a somewhat thankless role as an American expat who works in the same circles as the villains, while Takakura makes a good foil to Douglas as their two vastly different mentalities (the former's sense of strict honour clashes with the latter's self-righteous vigilantism) cause them to clash and have some interesting exchanges. It was even good to see Tomisaburo Wakayama of
Lone Wolf and Cub fame appear as an intimidating Yakuza boss whose fearsome monologue to Douglas gives the film its title and one of its best moments. Throw in a couple of well-executed action sequences, grainy neo-
noir camerawork, a neon-soaked Tokyo setting, and an aggressively dated Hans Zimmer score, and you have a reasonably entertaining but not too amazing piece of work.