Strange Days.

Review #2494: Strange Days.

Cast: 

Ralph Fiennes (Lenny Nero), Angela Bassett (Lornette "Mace" Mason), Juliette Lewis (Faith Justin), Tom Sizemore (Max Peltier), Michael Wincott (Philo Gant), Vincent D'Onofrio (Burton Steckler), Glenn Plummer (Jeriko One), Brigitte Bako (Iris), Richard Edson (Tick), William Fichtner (Dwayne Engelman), and Josef Sommer (Palmer Strickland) Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (#1258 - K-19: The Widowmaker, #1548 - The Hurt Locker, #1820 - The Loveless, #2188 - Near Dark, #2361 - Blue Steel)

Review: 

"Well, I don’t see Strange Days as a pure action genre piece. I think of it as a character-driven piece. It’s got a tremendous amount of dialogue and story—at one point we thought of it as science fiction as if written by David Mamet. The pauses in Strange Days are motivated more by story and character than by the need to linger on the mise-en-scène. That’s not to say we don’t fill every frame; your eye wanders outward to this complex environment that the principal characters don’t bother to acknowledge. They take it for granted that there’s an ad hoc revolution taking place, a civil war."

Inadvertently, I stumbled onto this movie when looking around for further movies involving Kathryn Bigelow. This was her fifth film as a director that just happened to be in between Point Break (1991) and The Weight of Water (2000). It came around after years of script development from James Cameron, who first envisioned it in 1985 and apparently wrote it mind for Bigelow (incidentally, they were once married) to direct it. They then collaborated on working the elements that interested them into the film, with Bigelow striving for grit while Cameron strove for the romance that resulted in a treatment. The treatment was then worked by Jay Cocks into a script that happened to get developed around the time of the Rodney King beating and the L.A. riots (incidentally, Bigelow was involved with the city cleanup). Cameron was more involved with the effects than being on set as a producer (he noted he visited the set just twice as a co-producer), particularly with wondering how the opening scene would look like in showing someone being part of a robbery that sees them swarmed by cops to see one run up a staircase and then have a jump from a ledge that had special cameras and rigs for it. This film and True Lies (1994) were part of a deal between 20th Century Fox. Set in the then future year of 1999 on December 30 and December 31, the movie was released in October of 1995 and somehow flopped with audiences, making less than half of its $42 million budget*, but there is a slight cult audience for the film.

  

Okay, so here's one: an electronic device (SQUID: Superconducting QUantum Interference Device) that lets you experience recorded memories and physical sensations of other people that happens to have little discs for storage (older film lovers might remember that interfacing oneself to record their sensations on tape for others to experience came a bit earlier with Brainstorm [1983], although that dealt with the military trying to get their hands on it). Memories were meant to fade, particularly when doomsday or redemption is on the line. This is a fascinating film that is hard to really piece down as belonging to any one genre, mainly because it makes the mark for sci-fi thriller just as much as it does belong to the noir genre, complete with plenty to astound the audience with beyond its violence. Sure, maybe we aren't all looking upon the world with VR headsets, but our fascination with technology is a strange one when you consider where "parasocial" has evolved to in the last couple of years with how now we can see any type of "living" to stream on a phone you can hold in your hand. People probably are isolated now more than ever, particularly in what we "see" and "feel", and there is something amusing in parts for what the film shows in how people use and don't use SQUID, specifically with the lead two characters. Fiennes (cast in the wake of being nominated for an Academy Award for Schindler's List instead of Andy Garcia) makes for a fascinating conman, one who is particularly vulnerable and fascinating because of how he eventually lands up in the quest to do the hardest thing one might think of: learning to let the past go and actually move forward. There's more to life than being a two-bit pathetic person, and he makes it a curious one to actually emphasize with. Of course, it is Bassett who provides the key moral center of the film, one who is just as handy in asserting herself (such as with a fist) as she is someone clearly desiring to see someone actually make a leap forward with her (as one does with arguably the biggest hero of the film). Sizemore and Lewis might seem outmatched within the confines of basically being in a noir (right down to the latter singing like a femme fatale might do), but I liked both of them in what they provide in their odd duck qualities that think people can be used up just like a beverage to eventually see go by the wayside. The 145-minute runtime leads to plenty of buildup for what type of world would have such a device go around even if someone might use it on a person dying of sexual assault, for example (also disturbing is a scene showing someone going brain dead from amplified signals). Sure, it might hit a ray of hope for its climax that may only work best as if one was watching a fable close itself down, but there is something to be had about a movie that seems to want to remind us to actually get real beyond being looped in playback. As a whole, Strange Days is a curious film in its desire to show the weird world of voyeurism within the confines of a dystopian future that may very well seem a bit familiar to those viewing the world with their eyes and ears nowadays. It deserved better than where it landed in 1995 and should be looked at by all the curious ones out there for its dazzling execution.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

See you in 2026.

*In comparison, in its first full week (it was limited on the first week) of release, the movie was beaten out by newcomers such as Jade and the Scarlet Letter to go along with the popular movie of the week again with Seven. And yeah, Get Shorty was the week after that.