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Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Ralph Fiennes
Angela Bassett
Juliette Lewis
Tom Sizemore
Vincent D'Onofrio
Directed By:
Kathryn Bigelow
Before they were competing for Oscars in a poor year, Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron were married. Even worse, they were working together. In Strange Days, Bigelow sits in the director chair as her hubby takes on writing duties. This cyberpunk flicker examines the last days of the millenium of Lenny Nero (Fiennes), an ex-cop turned salesman of bad dreams. Nero is selling SQUID videos, a contraption which allows you to live intense moments of somebody else's life at the expense of your brain cells. It's pretty much the new cocaine.
Lenny enjoys his life of bumming the braincells of the others, while pining over his ex-girlfriend Faith (Lewis), who he lost to a powerful label owner, due to Faith's own ambition. Things get out of hand though when Lenny starts getting blackmailed with a snuff movie showing the grisly murder of Iris, one of his close friends. From then, Lenny opens Pandora's box and discovers the mechanics of paranoia behind the passing of a tape that depicts the murder of one of the most important black man in America. Helped with his friends Macey (Bassett) and Max (Sizemore), he'll try to get this tape into the right hands and Faith back at the same time.
I was never big on Kathryn Bigelow. She tries too hard every goddamn time. At every swing she's going for the home run. Blue Steel was laughable and her latest offering The Hurt Locker, despite being very good, would have been ten times better if she wouldn't have used that shaky "realistic" camera. Strange Days is another offender, but it's way more enjoyable that most of her offerings. It's stripped bare of anything except a colorful and imaginative setting. The editing is so fast and tight that you get the impression that you're reading a graphic novel while going through the tribulations of Lenny Nero. There's not much flare, but the traditional Hollywood editing made to heighten the dramatic effects gives place to a diligent, military like editing that feels like you're flicking pages.
Ralph Fiennes plays a little heavy handed, uncomfortable with that type of movie. Fiennes is used to the more intellectual, down tuned roles, but I guess he was starving for a pay check back then. The ordinary Tom Sizemore gives a satisfying performence as Max, Lenny's best friends, but the best interpretations are made by Angela Bassett and Juliette Lewis, who prove that they are more than two of the most good looking women in Hollywood. You can feel an invisible wire of tension in between them even if they share a few scenes.
So does Kathryn Bigelow overdoes it again? Yes. The movie drags on and the screenplay is a little self-indulgent. The story is smart and fast-paced, but the dialogs are poor for the kind of setting cyberpunk can offer. Both shining stars are the strong female sidekicks, which isn't surprising if you remember the strong feminist beliefs of the director. Males are savage or submissive and females are the dragging force. Nothing new under the sun. Strange Days is one of Bigelow's finest despite being a little frustrating that she makes her concern plague a cyberpunk story. It's a good, entertaining rental but it's not a movie you will come back to times and times over.
SCORE: 71%
