Strange Days

It is the near future (well, it was in 1995) a couple of days just before 2000.  Los Angeles is awash with violence as Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes), a small-time hustler, peddles tape for a new type of computer-generated virtual reality device called a Superconductor Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) which allows its users to vicariously enjoy other people’s experiences by “jacking” in to their mental image bank via a special headset. Highly addictive there is a high premium on” illicit” behaviours  - sex, of course, and crime are a big turn on but Lenny finds himself in deep trouble when one of his employees is murdered for a tape she made. Somehow it is connected to the shooting of rap star Jeriko One (Glenn Plummer) whose manager Philo Grant (Michael Wincott) has a mysterious hold over Lenny’s former girlfriend, Faith  (Juliette Lewis).

Certainly it wouldn’t have hurt that James Cameron who was a producer on this film was also Bigelow’s former husband but what she achieves as a director is impressive. There are a few too many scenes of street anarchy and the film is too long because of them and at times the whole rock scene thing is too much like something Luc Besson would do  - self-consciously posing fashion victims, posturing dudes with bad attitudes and generic thrash rock  - but for the most part it is an intensely-paced affair with superbly-staged action sequences much aided by the skills of cinematographer Matthew F. Leonetti. 

Performances are all excellent with Fiennes playing Lenny the indefatigable chiseller with low rent panache, Juliette Lewis, as always, knows how to play trashy (she is less convincing as a punk rock singer) and Angela Bassett is ravishing as the girl who saves Lenny from himself whilst Michael Wincott makes for a suitable villain. Tom Sizemore in a very dodgy wig is, however, not the film’s highpoint.

Aside from its technical chops what makes this film a cut above is its intelligence.  The core concept of the human addiction to the world of representation is a fascinating one (similar ideas were explored in  Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall (1989) as well as, albeit briefly, Barry Levinson's Toys (1992) and is neatly interwoven into the typical crime/thriller plot whilst Bigelow uses the same theme to parenthesize the graphic violence as a voyeuristic experience. The script by Cameron and former film critic Jay Cocks is slick, with Lenny Nero (Italian for “black”) a noirish hipster hero in an artfully constructed alt-universe that is not far off Blade Runner.

 

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