BLADE RUNNER (1982) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge
Director: Ridley Scott Writers: Hampton Fancher and David Peoples (based on the book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick) Starring: Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, Joanna Cassidy, Brion James, William Sanderson, M. Emmet Walsh, Edward James Olmos, James Hong, Morgan Paull
It's pretty much the requisite that a film taking place in the future has a lot of action, maybe a little romance, and grade-A special effects. "Blade Runner" has the latter two, and has a plot that sounds like it would contain a lot of big action sequences: a police officer called a blade runner has to silence four illegal androids called replicants. It sounds like a B-movie action sci-fi pic, but "Blade Runner" takes this idea a whole different and original way, which disapoints some (the flick bombed at the box office), but pleases others.
The "Blade Runner" of the title is Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford, around the time he had just gotten big with "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark"), a retired Blade Runner in L.A. 2019. He is basically your typical Phillip Marloe/Sam Spade/John Shaft loner detective, dressing in trench-coats, and always brooding over something (although getting significantly less booty than Shaft). Harrison Ford has been criticized for his portrayal, but I thought he gave a nicely alienated performance, with touches of humor in it, without never loosing the core of the character.
Deckard is called in to "retire" four "skin jobs," as his ex-boss (M. Emmet Walsh) puts it. He says the job is "bad, the worst," chiefly because these illegal androids, which were deemed illegal when they started going beserk and killing people, have come back to earth, in the city where the plant that created them is: Tyrell Corp., headed by the epnonmysly named genius (Joe Turkel, the bartender in Kubrick's "The Shining"). He reluctantly agrees to do it, and is sent out with his quiet assistant (Edward James Olmos) to investigate...slowly.
The four replicants in the film - leader Batty (Rutger Hauer), acrobatic Pris (Daryl Hannah), kinda dumb Leon (Brion James), and seductive Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) - are shown in intercuts between the action of Deckard. They aren't shown as truly evil creatures, but are given a bit of respect. They are, after all, beings who are given a short lifespan and don't to die after experiencing life for only four years, after which they die. Their actions are only influenced by their necessity to survive, like any other kind of living organism.
Also in the film is the replicant Rachael (Sean Young), who has no clue she's a replicant. She has been given a past, inplanted by Tyrell, and when she finds out, she begins to become obsessed with the man who found her out - Deckard. They share a bizarre relationship, seeming to fall in love, which is the cruel ironic twist in the movie. When she finds out, she begins to run, and Deckard finds out he has to retire her as well as the other four.
The film moves at a very slow, leisurely pace. While this pisses a lot of people off, it's no slower than a detective film noir from the 40s, like "Malteese Falcon." The twist on the detective noir story is that it's in the future, and it works nicely. It not only builds up a wonderful paralellism between humans and androids, but creates a memorable world (which was nominated for an Oscar, but lost to "E.T" - okay, let's see: creating an entirely new world, or creating one goddam little alien? the choice shouldn't be that hard, folks).
The world that is depicted is one that is totally amazing to view, but shown in a lovely bit of satirical insight into our world. What has happened is we have apparently destroyed earth, and the rich and elite have moved to the "off-shore colonies," which is shown in ad campaigns flying around the streets of L.A., which are filled with trash, and mostly aisians (hmm...). The rich and elite who haven't off earth live in the tops of tall buildings, which seems to be the only source of light in the world.
The direction, script, and acting are very good, although they are all both dark and brooding, sometimes too much so. The lighting in the film is somewhat like that of Ridley's brother Tony's - blue foggy lights - but used to a poignant and cooler effect (the blue foggy lights in Tony Scott flicks are there for...um...well, there is no reason why they're there). The writing sometimes features some really dumb and corny lines that aren't always well-said by the actors ("Wake up! Time to die!"), but it's plotting is nice, leaving a lot of themes and symbolism to pop out nicely and smoothly, and for a message to be conveyed, instead of lost in a stupid action sci-fi pic.
And the acting is generally good, with notable performances by Rutger Hauer (who does overdo it a bit towards the end), Sean Young (who gives what is probably the only good performance of her career), and William Sanderson (the leader of the "Daryl"s from "Newhart," who gives a senstive performance as a diseased engineer who helps some of the replicants out, and actually got a lot of pathos from me).
There are two versions of this flick: the original and the director's cut. There seems to be some contreversy over which one is the better one. The director's cut doesn't change A LOT, but what it changes are excellent. For one thing, the annoying-as-hell, unnecessary, montone voice-over narration by Harrison Ford is thankfully omitted (some say it helps; I think it is annoying, and spoon-feeds all the themes to us, not letting us figure it out). Another thing is the love between Rachael and Deckard is actually backed up a little more, making it a tad more realistic than just some cruel irony tossed in by the writers.
And then there's the ending. The studios basically fucking freaked when they saw this original film because it wasn't "Star Wars," and they realized the general public would hate it. So they tried their best to sabotage it, apparently for the better. So they made him toss in a stupid final scene where a nice, sun-shiny twist was revealed. The director's cut cuts this out, and leaves off with the darker ending, which suits the film a little better.
But even if you don't see the director's cut, it's an excellent film, although a tad flawed. And even if you can't get into the story, or like any of the characters, at least your mouth can drop at the gorgous sets, special effects, etc, etc, etc. And besides, you get to see Daryl Hannah do the "Onnatop" spiel from "Goldeneye on a lucky Harrison Ford!
MY RATING (out of 4): ***1/2
Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews