Review of Black Rain (1989) by Jonathan Rosenbaum for Chicago Reader — 20 Aug 2004
Ridley Scott directed this 1989 feature, and while there's a lot of his characteristic atmospherics—smoke, fog, neon, yellow light, rain, and squalor—to fill all the dead spaces, he's still a long way from the splendors of Blade Runner.
The script by Craig Bolotin and Warren Lewis doesn't give him or Douglas very much to chew on, apart from a lot of unpleasant xenophobia about Japanese gangsters, and the plot never gets far beyond the formulaic and the forgettable, hammered into place by Hans Zimmer's pounding and numbing score.
You can read the full review where it was originally posted online.
This review of Black Rain (1989) was written by Jonathan Rosenbaum and published by Chicago Reader on 20 Aug 2004.
Black Rain has generally received positive reviews.
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