Black Rain

Crime

Michael Douglas	Nick Conklin
Andy Garcia	Charlie Vincent
Ken Takakura	Masahiro Matsumoto
Kate Capshaw	Joyce
Yusaku Matsuda	Sato
Shigeru Kôyama	Superintendent Ohashi
John Spencer	Captain Oliver
Guts Ishimatsu	Katayama
Yuya Uchida	Nashida
Tomisaburo Wakayama	Sugai

Director	Ridley Scott; Shohei Imamura
Producer	Craig Bolotin; Sherry Lansing; Stanley R. Jaffe
Writer	Warren Lewis; Craig Bolotin
Cinematography	Jan de Bont

A guilty pleasure if ever there was one, Black Rain is a ridiculously entertaining thriller by Ridley Scott (Alien), starring Michael Douglas as a tough New York cop who--along with his partner (Andy Garcia)--goes to Japan to deliver a local mobster. When the latter escapes, Douglas's brand of gonzo crime fighting rubs his Japanese hosts the wrong way. Slick, mechanistic, and absurd, the film is all surface action and attitude (not to mention Scott's incredibly busy, trademark art direction); and one can get lost in the sheer indulgence of it. However, if you can buy Douglas as an iconoclastic lawman, you can buy anything else here, including the notion of Kate Capshaw as a blonde escort highly desired by Japanese businessmen. --Tom Keogh