#Black rain movie

For one thing, Michael Douglas aces his anti-hero part. WHY IT'S GREAT: BLACK RAIN is an eighties gem for many reasons.

#Black rain movie

Sandwiched between Douglas’s more well-known vehicles, with BASIC INSTINCT another giant hit just a few years later, and coming along at a fallow time in Ridley Scott’s career, it remains a movie rarely discussed in examinations of either’s career. Nowadays, BLACK RAIN remains popular among aficionados of eighties action cinema, with it remaining Michael Douglas’s one real attempt to make an action-movie on par with what Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger were doing at the time. It grossed $46 million, decent enough numbers for the era, but it wound-up grossing far less than comparable action movies of the time, although worldwide it was a solid hit, grossing an additional $88 million, while it also became a hot rental on the VHS market. So, we said, “just make it the right length, it doesn’t have to be under two hours, just make it the right length.” (note- the final cut runs 125 minutes) – Sherry Lansing (BLACK RAIN DVD).ĭespite critical acclaim and Douglas’s star-power, BLACK RAIN was only a modest hit upon its release in the fall of 1989. We looked at him and asked, “what did you do,” and he said, what do you mean “what did I do?” “You took out all the good stuff, why did you make it this?” He said, “but I had to,” and he DID have to, to make it under two hours he had to take out some of the texture and some of the finest scenes in the movie. Then, Ridley called us back, I dunno, four weeks later and showed us a movie that was an hour and fifty minutes long. I mean, the texture of the movie, the performances, the visuals, the sound, we were thrilled. I remember when Ridley showed us the first cut of the movie it was about two hours and forty minutes, and it was extraordinary… But, this was his first cut, and so we all new that he was going to go in and make the film under two hours. Opting for a rare action role, grittier and more hard-edged than his turns in ROMANCING THE STONE and THE JEWEL OF THE NILE, Douglas, with his FATAL ATTRACTION producers Stanley Jaffe and Sherry Lansing (who would soon run Paramount Pictures), hired Ridley Scott, then on a career downswing following LEGEND and SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, to helm this stylish East-meets-West thriller, which would shoot on-location in Japan. Following his Oscar-win for WALL STREET, and FATAL ATTRACTION’s boffo box office, his was considered one of the most bankable actors in Hollywood. THE HISTORY: Michael Douglas was riding high in 1989. THE PLAYERS: Starring: Michael Douglas, Andy García, Ken Takakura, Kate Capshaw and Yusaku Matsuda. With their former captive cutting a swath through the local Yakuza in an attempt to establish himself as the new Tokyo boss, the cops are forced into an uneasy alliance with a by-the-book local police inspector ( Ken Takakura). THE STORY: A corrupt American cop ( Michael Douglas) and his partner ( Andy Garcia) wind-up in Japan after a prisoner exchange gone awry.

Welcome to The Best Movie You NEVER Saw, a column dedicated to examining films that have flown under the radar or gained traction throughout the years, earning them a place as a cult classic or underrated gem that was either before it’s time and/or has aged like a fine wine.