Page 8 -The MichiganDaily - Friday, September 22, 1989 Pacino & Douglas: Police problems .j Pacino St BY TONY SILBER He is the host at a "Meet the New York Yankees" breakfast. He greets some shady-looking characters as they file in and take seats in the de- caying old gymnasium. When they're all seated, he takes the stage and tells them he has some good news and some bad news. He speaks with his cqcky New York accent: "The bad news is that the Yankees can't make it today and we have outstanding war- rants out on all of you. You're under arrest." At that, 20 undercover cops storm into the gym with handcuffs. The good news? Before they go to jail, a big bottle of vodka is passed around. :Pacino. He makes motion pictures, or beaks them. He can be a dynamic piesence or an obvious void. He's back to big films; this one is Sea of Lgve. Pacino as the cop - the two seem synonymous. Scarecrow, Ser- pgo, Cruising - quite a resume for ao established cop actor. This time it's a serial murderer on orms Sea the streets. Two men have been found naked, face-down in bed, shot through the head, one in Queens, one downtown. Clues are sketchy, leads nonexistent. But Pacino's on the job, no need to worry. His partner, Rosanne's own John Goodman, is a great co-star. His mixture of comedy and confidence round out his character in a big way. They find out that the dead guys were advertising in the personals. One thing leads to another and Pacino and Goodman find themselves swamped with women answering their bait ad; the wining and dining cops try to find the one among them responsible for these killings. Ellen Barkin answers the ad and is initially turned off by the gritty, undercover Pacino. A day later, he becomes Rudolph Valentino. Never a charmer, but always charming, Pacino begins his affair with Barkin, while all the time she is considered a suspect. At a posh French restaurant, with a violinist playing next to their table, an un- of Love nerved Pacino turns to Barkin and says, "I feel like I got the London Philharmonic up my ass." That's Pacino - one-liners, tough-liners, hard-liners. He can be funny and a hero, too. As the film progresses, director Harold Becker (Vision Quest) tact- fully increases the level of tension and suspense. An eerie, yet pounding musical score combined with some ethereal lighting and filming tech- niques create this building atmo- sphere of uncertainty. But they're all dressing up Pacino's role. He re- mains the center of attention throughout, and the production val- ues in the film merely complement his bigger-than-life presence. Pacino plays a typical Pacino cop with flair and experience. He's aged well. His foul mouthed, hard-drink- ing determination is his weapon in this street war with the unknown killer - whose identity will, in fact, surprise you. He can make any film with a reasonably interesting script if he is cast well. Sea of Love is an in- See SEA, page 10 0 0 I Kate Capshaw and Michael Douglas are all business as he tracks a ruthless killer through the dark, seedy streets of the Tokyo underworld. Black Rain: A taste of Japan BY TONY SILBER The Motorcycle. Symbol of the renegade and the free-spirited. Symbol of the powerful and the resource- ful. As the sun rises on a new motion picture, a mo- torcycle glides across the Brooklyn Bridge where, on the docks at the other side, a high-speed cycle drag race awaits. The driver eyes the scene; he is unshaven and brash. He pulls out $50 that says he's fastest. He wins the race, and not surprisingly, his opponent wipes out. The helmet comes off and Michael Douglas gives us a confident grin and heads for work. This is a cop? In Black Rain, Michael Douglas is a renegade cop. He drives a motorcycle and he hates suits (bureaucratic cops in the police heirarchy). He's been called into an inter-departmental hearing to investigate charges that he stole money at the scene of a drug bust. Thus begins this film - an unconventional cop on the legal ropes finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Douglas (Fatal Attraction, Wall Street) plays Nick Conklin, the down-and-out detective. He witnesses a brutal assassination at a Greenwich Village cafe in which two armed Japanese men enter, converse with a group of older Japanese gentlemen eating lunch, and then slit the throats of two of them. A chase ensues, with Nick catching his man, getting into a fight with him, and having his butt saved by his partner, Charlie Vincent (Andy Garcia). Nick and Charlie get the job of taking their man to Tokyo where he is wanted for organized crime activi- ties. But something goes wrong and the criminal, Sato (Yusaku Matsuda), escapes with some police im- posters. Nick and Charlie refuse to return to New York, and insist on staying in Tokyo and hunting him down. The plot of Black Rain presents some interesting pos- sibilities. An American police story in a foreign envi- ronment can result in some unusual situations as the cop is taken off the turf he knows and transplanted into a strange environment. The two American cops are assigned to Detective Masahiro Matsumoto (Ken Takakura) who becomes their beleagured laison with the Tokyo police. Black Rain becomes a study of cultural contrasts, not only in crime-fighting menthods but in social behavior as well. Charlie often finds himself trying to translate Nick's constant American swearing which the Japanese, of course, do not understand. The film is also surprisingly critical of America. "Music and movies is all America is good for," says Matsumoto. Well, we'll be the judge of that. Meanwhile, Nick, a renegade in New York, becomes a renegade in Tokyo, turning his back on authority as all successful movie cops do, pushing the bounderies of reasonable crime fighting to the limit. As a result, he becomes deeply involved in the gang war which is go- ing on in the streets between Sato and his former aging l boss, Sugai. What stands out as exceptional in Black Rain is the departure from the conventional cop-killer stories. Nick Conklin is a cop who has committed wrongdoings in the course of the job. How are we as the audience sup- posed to react to such a revelation? His new-found comrade in crime fighting, Matsumoto, deplores this kind of behavior and makes Nick feel a little bad for his sins. Another interesting twist in Black Rain is the hos- tile relationship between Nick and Sato, the killer. They're both alike in many ways, and director Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner) makes their limited inter- play especially fascinating, similar to the interplay be- tween Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner. They're both criminals, in a sense, both ruth- less, both driven by an extraordinary determination. Ridley is on top of the game throughout this film; the action and interest in Black Rain rarely subside for long. This picture of the underside of another culture is an innovative and riveting approach in this film genre. BLACK RAIN is now showing at Showcase Cinemas and Briarwood. Ellen Barkin and Al Pacino stay this close throughout most of the film. A Sea of Love could never them, let alone a ray of light come between PROPHECY LECTURES A WORLD ______ IN TURMOIL- What is JAY GALLIMORE Lecturer Jay Gallimore is endorsed by Lifestyle Magazine and It Is Written telecasts. 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