Black Rain (1989)
Director: Ridley Scott
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Dishonoured detective Nick Conklin (Douglas) and easygoing partner Charlie Vincent (Garcia) escort a desperately ruthless yakuza from New York to Osaka. When he is snatched from under their noses, they join forces with the Japanese police to recover their man. Most of the interplay is between Conklin, under investigation back home, and his Japanese colleague Matsumoto (Takakura), who upholds group loyalty over the American's individualism. 'You must have patience', Conklin is warned by his Japanese hosts. 'Fuck patience', he retorts, and goes about cutting corners. Their quarry belongs to a counterfeiting ring which schemes to infiltrate the American economy - Japanese revenge, it would seem, for losing the war (black rain refers to radioactive fallout after Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Tiresome gags abound at the expense of the uptight Japanese detective, with Conklin revelling in language misunderstandings, and prejudices are aired until some sort of reconciliation is reached - after Matsumoto has adopted vigilante methods. Obvious stuff.Author: CM
Cast & crew
Director: Ridley Scott
Producer: Stanley R Jaffe, Sherry Lansing
Cast: Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, Ken Takakura, Kate Capshaw, Yusaku Matsuda, Shigeru Koyama, John Spencer full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 125 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.



What do you think?
Post your review now