Johnny Mnemonic - kuoleman kuriiri

One Friday night in early 1994, I was one of the hundreds of extras who was hired to be moving scenery for this film. Basically, they convincingly turned Toronto's fabled Union Station into some post-apocalyptic hospice, in which we were all supposed to be shuffling around, getting food and suffering from some neurological disease. It's always amusing to see what filmmakers do to disguise Toronto as something else, to make it look like it takes place anywhere else other than (gasp) Canada. Still, whenever I go to Union Station, I am impressed with the makeover this location got.

I was anxious to see whether I made in the final cut or not, but the film's release kept on getting pushed back and pushed back. That is a sure sign that the movie is going to be a turkey. Well, it isn't terrible. William Gibson expanded his own short story-- so much so that the film is actually a mess. A beautiful looking one, however. Longo and DOP Francois Protat do a serviceable job in capturing the "plastic noir" of the future. But ultimately the movie suffers from having too many ideas-- some of them ludicrous, many of them poorly developed. It doesn't help either that the drama of the piece relies on the thespian abilities of Keanu Reeves or Dolph Lundgren. Yikes! Even so, Henry Rollins is pretty cool.

But for me, the great suspense was seeing whether or not I ended up on the cutting room floor. So for about two seconds, you get to see my face in a crowd shot. See? See? Wait! Damn!