Strange Days

It’s fascinating seeing certain movies being re-evaluated years down the line after their initial release was met with an extremely positive or negative response. There’s been instances of movies aging poorly and its fan-base seeing it in a new light, but probably the more interesting occasion is when a movie gets much better reception after time has passed, and this weirdly happens a lot with sci-fi films. Through whatever means, movies in said genre have been released to polarizing critical reception yet have garnered a cult following over the years and even shift the general census from negative to positive, with examples like the original Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Total Recall, The Terminator, and the movie of focus today, the 1995 film Strange Days, being front-runners of this phenomenon. Set in the last few days of 1999, Los Angeles has devolved into a war zone where crime is rampant, people claw at each other to get what they want, and most of the time, people live out their specific fantasies through the use of a SQUID; an illegal electronic device that records memories and gives its user a first-person view into whatever the person recording did previously. Former LAPD officer Lenny Nero (played by Ralph Fiennes) sells them on the black market and even uses it himself to relive his past romance with his ex-girlfriend Faith (played by Juliette Lewis). After encountering a panicked prostitute who is being chased by some cops, Lenny discovers later that a memory was left behind and upon playing it, shows the prostitute being brutally murdered by an unknown figure. Feeling like this assailant is calling him out and is planning to attack Faith, Lenny along with his bodyguard and limousine driver, Mace Mason (played by Angela Bassett) and private investigator Max Peltier (played by Tom Sizemore) work together to unveil this sick murderer, eventually discovering a conspiracy that would start the new year off in a bad way. Strange Days was a huge failure upon release, making less than a sixth of its original budget back and was a polarizing movie for critics as well, but the film (like others before it) would grow a following and get people to give it a second chance. With that said, does it deserve one?

The film was made by two creators who feel like opposites in many ways; being directed by Kathryn Bigelow (whose worked on films like Near Dark, Point Break, The Hurt Locker, and Zero Dark Thirty) and was written by James Cameron (who was responsible for projects like Avatar, Titanic and the first two Terminator films) with assistance from Jay Cocks. This was still early in both their careers, but it was enough time that both had developed a semblance of a style to their work, and with this in mind, they clash within this project. Bigelow’s style of film-making is very unconventional to Hollywood, focuses on a lot of heavier intense violence, and addresses serious real-world topics, whereas Cameron can often times be very traditional Hollywood and while he is known for being innovative in his directing, can be a little cliched and unrealistic in terms of his writing. This film has a premise and atmosphere that screams overblown 80s action cheese (which is something Cameron could have excelled at), but the content and tone of the film goes in a very dark, gritty, unpleasant, and topical direction (which is something that Bigelow feels more comfortable in). Strange Days takes inspiration from the real-life Lorena Bobbitt trial as well as the 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the Rodney King verdict, incidents that would no doubt have brought an intense realism to the story, but the movie doesn’t properly convey this gruesome environment due to the writing for the film being corny and for lack of a better word ‘’actionified’’ to the point of being unrealistic. It feels like a hodgepodge of an 80s action flick, a film noir, a gritty police procedural and a Grand Theft Auto game, and this premise surrounding devices that allow people to project memories into their brains could have worked with one of these genres individually, but all together feel like a messy dish right out of the oven. The structure of the story is pretty unbalanced, with the final act feeling oddly detached due to veering into a subject matter that’s entirely different come the final scene, and the messy tone makes neither the realistic content or the overblown action stuff work. The directing by Bigelow manages to be effective in the gritty moments as they come across as legitimately uncomfortable and it feels like she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to these political and social issues, but due to the conflicting tone and awful writing, it isn’t effective and almost too forceful for something that could’ve easily just been an action film with a hint of political commentary.

For a movie of this type , the casting choices are odd and don’t scream as options for this environment or story. Most of the acting in this film is unfortunately not very strong, but due to the messy nature of the movie, it could either come down to awkward directing, a consequence of the poor script, or it just wasn’t the right choice. Most of these actors have gone on to work on better stuff, but a majority are not only poor in this film, but quite unlikeable due to how awfully their characters are written. Ralph Fiennes is saddled with an awful American accent as well as a character that is written with no likability or even intrigue, it’s a bad lead character. Juliette Lewis is annoyingly flat and unsympathetic in every manner, which is a big problem when she is the focal character that is trying to be protected. The two share zero chemistry and it proves to feel weirdly melodramatic in a story trying to be so gritty and real (again further complicating the tone and atmosphere this movie is hoping to create). Tom Sizemore’s performance screams action film sidekick, which again conflicts with the subject matter and tone the film is going for, which just results in his entire performance feeling out of place and annoying. Even a majority of the villains in this movie are acted with such other-the-top droll that they feel like satires of those they are representing (feeling like terrible portrayals of serious topics as opposed to goofy portrayals of movie villains). The only role that gets some actual meat and is one worth following is Angela Bassett’s character. Despite still being poorly written and her later purpose in the film is to fall in love with the lead character (supposedly) and then be a victim to police brutality (uncomfortably), Bassett does bring a lot of coolness and legitimate capability to this role, to the point where it becomes clear that she should have been the one to follow in this movie as she’s the one doing half the work anyway, and her later development at least feels like it could be engaging if given further context, whereas Fiennes is stuck with ”angry ex-wife doesn’t want to be saved, but got nothing better to do, so better save”, its really poorly handled.

From a technical perspective, the movie has some nice shots from cinematographer Matthew F. Leonetti that utilize a first-person perspective that, while not frequently used, does offer a different feel when viewing through these lenses and provides the film with its own weird visual identity (and a steadiness most found-footage movies can’t pull off). For a lot of these dystopian stories that tackle sci-fi elements within a mostly feasible reality, it is interesting to see how the world adapts to these changes, what comes from this new environment and what gets removed, and how the public reacts to said evolution, whether in a good or a bad way. This environment is definitely more mainstream and down-to-earth in comparison to other futuristic environments (mainly due to this one only really going about four years in the future at the time of its release), but it is still an environment that, at first, looks promising. It’s like if the world of Grand Theft Auto was thrown into a constant purge; it’s riddled with crime and violence but is home to plenty of over-the-top caricatures and crazy situations where it almost embraces its wild side and goes berserk in it, but in a goofily enjoyable manner and the production design from Lilly Kilvert supports this. From a first look, it has elements that could work in a cyberpunk-like setting that’s akin to something like Demolition Man, and even the 90s aesthetic supports that. What is usually a hindrance in certain films (a sense of dated-ness, particularly from the 90s) actually proves mostly effectively here because it present some of the more enjoyable aspects of the 90s and even the 80s; the crazy outfits and hairstyles, the extreme violence, even most of the music feels natural in this time period and world they’ve established so most of it actually works to its favor. However, not only does the location keep getting less interesting the more time is spent in it, but because of the previously mentioned unpleasant atmosphere created in such a realistic manner, it sucks out whatever escapist fun someone could have in an environment like this, it removes the rose-tinted glasses that people could have worn in a world like Grand Theft Auto and makes it hit a little too close to home when they are forced to not only view it in a movie format, but also sometimes in a first person perspective (there are times when it gets a little close and personal with the human body that is not comfortable to watch in the slightest).

Strange Days is a failed execution of a concept that maybe with proper handling, could have been something more. The premise of a film noir detective story occurring which tracks the murderer through their victims memory is a interesting idea and could have used this cyberpunk environment to its advantage, but instead its overly grizzly and unpleasant tone holds a lot of this film’s good will down and along with conflicted direction, awful characters and a garbage screenplay, it makes it one not really worth searching out. For a movie that has awoken more of a fan-base over-time, its nice to see that some people have managed to get something out of this, it’s just a shame that its hard to see exactly what that is. Angela Bassett is the only great thing in this and maybe if you’re into these kind of films, this one will work fine for you, but otherwise, Strange Days is a little too unpleasant to get sucked into.