Bladerunner

Viewed: DVD

Rick Deckard, a Bladerunner, investigates and kills replicants (androids) gone rogue. This movie stands up well as a vision of a dark future, but the creators seemed to expect a little more advancement of technology — the setting is 2019 and there are flying cars and life-like robots. The visuals of the future city are great, but does the sun never shine in this world — I mean, it’s supposed to be Los Angeles.

The standard method to identify a replicant trying to pose as a real human is for the bladrunner to ask a long series of personal questions which apparently causes a replicant to wig out to a minor or major degree. The minor telling response can be simply subtle eye twitches or something, and the major sign is a deadly attack.

Harrison Ford seems to have a draw to characters in movies that get their asses kicked. He, of course, wins in the end, but he’s like Bruce Willis in that he looks good with cuts and bruises.

This movie has good action, though really not as much as you might think for its genre. It’s mostly a dark (in feel and visuals) and brooding cop drama. I liked it when I saw it way back in the early 80s, and I’m happy to say I still like it now, although it’s not a movie I would watch more than once in a decade.

There’s an interesting scene (interesting in a cultural since) where Deckard . . . hmmm, how to describe this? In today’s culture, he essentially rapes a woman by intimidation. In the early 80s culture, he was just being . . . strong. The scene is not graphic: he closes the door to prevent the woman from leaving his apartment, and then he tells her what to say to him, and she says it. This shows a subtle change our culture has made in 25 years.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com