This film amply illustrates the danger of making a film too up-to-the-minute stylish: 20 years later, it's a dinosaur. The fashions, the lighting, the advent of bungee-jumping. It all dates the film so badly that it's distracting.
To be fair, there are some pluses to the film. It has an extremely exciting chase sequence, and some unexpected plot twists (once the extremely predictable first act is out of the way). And any film with John Turturro receives an extra rating point in my book. Unfortunately, the legion of minuses overwhelm these features.
The penultimate sin is the hero himself. He is, for all intents and purposes, a non-character. He has no background, no characteristics, and no motivation beyond "you killed my partner you scumbag". He is a boring cipher who displays personality only occasionally, and then just to be a complete jerk. The villain is a relic from when Willem Dafoe was relegated to playing two-dimensional psychos, before "Platoon" rescued him.
But if one element hangs this film by the neck and leaves it twisting in the wind, it's the unbelievably awful score. Whoever came up with the brainstorm of hiring Wang Chung to score this film really needed to rethink his choice of career. Far from showing concern for the tempo or mood of any given scene, the music is determined to draw attention to itself. It belongs to that most specialized of musical genres, the crummy 80's new wave film score, as pioneered by Tangerine Dream. It has two modes; annoying synth-drum and irritating electronic droning. Neither serves to establish mood, and sinks every scene in which it appears. It doesn't help that any scene in which a radio is on is playing a Wang Chung song; apparently, LA had a 24-hour all-Wang Chung station in 1985.
I remember this film making quite a splash at the time, and it is said to have been the inspiration for "Miami Vice". The extreme levels of sex and violence certainly would have been a shock for audiences at the time, and perhaps the sense of style gave it a very cutting-edge feel. Now, sadly, it's just dated and silly.
To be fair, there are some pluses to the film. It has an extremely exciting chase sequence, and some unexpected plot twists (once the extremely predictable first act is out of the way). And any film with John Turturro receives an extra rating point in my book. Unfortunately, the legion of minuses overwhelm these features.
The penultimate sin is the hero himself. He is, for all intents and purposes, a non-character. He has no background, no characteristics, and no motivation beyond "you killed my partner you scumbag". He is a boring cipher who displays personality only occasionally, and then just to be a complete jerk. The villain is a relic from when Willem Dafoe was relegated to playing two-dimensional psychos, before "Platoon" rescued him.
But if one element hangs this film by the neck and leaves it twisting in the wind, it's the unbelievably awful score. Whoever came up with the brainstorm of hiring Wang Chung to score this film really needed to rethink his choice of career. Far from showing concern for the tempo or mood of any given scene, the music is determined to draw attention to itself. It belongs to that most specialized of musical genres, the crummy 80's new wave film score, as pioneered by Tangerine Dream. It has two modes; annoying synth-drum and irritating electronic droning. Neither serves to establish mood, and sinks every scene in which it appears. It doesn't help that any scene in which a radio is on is playing a Wang Chung song; apparently, LA had a 24-hour all-Wang Chung station in 1985.
I remember this film making quite a splash at the time, and it is said to have been the inspiration for "Miami Vice". The extreme levels of sex and violence certainly would have been a shock for audiences at the time, and perhaps the sense of style gave it a very cutting-edge feel. Now, sadly, it's just dated and silly.