RISING SUN
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1993 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
RISING SUN does for Japanese businessmen what THE FIRM did for American lawyers. However, it didn't do much for me. I mean, it's not a *bad* film or anything--it's sufficiently stylish and the performances are decent, kinda like THE FIRM in that respect (another film based on a best-selling novel). But there's nothing particularly *special* about it. And when all is said and done, it goes on way too long.
What it *does* have going for it is bullet-proof casting, especially of its two leads, Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes.
LAPD special services liaison Web Smith (Snipes) is called in to investigate a homicide at the grand opening of the Nakamoto Corporation's multi-million dollar skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles. Connery plays Detective John Connor, a mysterious figure knowledgeable in Japanese relations, who's lured out of semi-retirement to assist him. Snipes plays reluctant *kohai* (junior partner) to Connery's *sempai* (guide), and the two of them hit the ground running, forming a congenial on-screen rapport.
Hampered by negative attitudes towards the Japanese on all sides, Connor and Smith become embroiled in a murder investigation where the sale of advanced technology to one of the United States' biggest competitors becomes a central theme. There's plenty of finger-pointing--at an easily-influenced U.S. senator, a yuppie facilitator, and a smooth, winsome playboy to name but a few--but by the end of RISING SUN, it's not totally clear whodunit.
Part of the problem with RISING SUN is that we never get to know the woman who's body is found on the boardroom table--she's bumped off pretty early on. Okay, so she's just a pawn, a call girl, but the film could have been more interesting had we known something--anything--about her.
"Get this body out of here before it starts smelling like sushi!" yells insensitive police officer Tom Graham (Harvey Keitel). It's one of many dumb sushi jokes, and another lather-rinse-repeat performance from Keitel. Here he's cast as a bigoted bad lieutenant with a penchant for a little Japan-bashing of his own. He's played this kind of role a hundred times before but if he hadn't, he wouldn't be so good at it. Anyone who can steal a scene from Connery *and* Snipes can't be too shabby. On a rant about racism, Graham rails "Whatever happened to good and evil? Whatever happened to '*He* did it'?" This guy's xenophobic blusterings are laughable, and Keitel's performance is one of the few pleasures of RISING SUN.
Tia Carrere (WAYNE'S WORLD) plays Jingo Asakuma, a genius hacker who helps unravel the mystery on her computer. Although she looks great in all that black spandex, the scenes of her manipulating videoed images of the murder are repetitive and not particularly enlightening. There are hints that her character is more interesting than her late night, desktop activities would imply, but these are never developed.
The film is badly in need of an editor. There are too many scenes that go nowhere and one, in which Connor and Smith are chased into the 'hood, is superfluous (and as an attempt at role-reversal humor, embarrassing beyond belief). And everything culminates in an awkward final scene between Smith and Asakuma that makes you wanna scream "Cut!"
Director Philip Kaufman (THE RIGHT STUFF, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING) has taken Michael Crichton's politically-charged novel about corporate and cultural intrigue within the Japanese-American business world and de-sensitized it, turning it into a slick yet pedestrian thriller. RISING SUN has been called a cautionary tale by many, but Kaufman's overly diplomatic approach to this material is itself too cautious, robbing the volatile story of its fire and passion. His intent may have been to downplay the tensions between two world super powers, but RISING SUN is a long way from cultural detente.
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