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Ridley Scott's international crime thriller looks beautiful, though is not considered to be one of his better films by the majority of his fanbase. In fact, I'll have to admit that I even overlooked it at the time of its release.

It wasn't until one late evening during my final year at University that I thought it was about time I should get a cheap copy from Amazon and give it my undivided attention. After all, Scott was the one I continually praised for bringing Alien into my life, and I felt as if I at least owed him a few more hours of my time.

Black Rain illustrates the racial and cultural stereotypes of the Americans and the Japanese. Shot during the late '80s, its story concerns two New York cops, Nick (Michael Douglas) and Charlie (Andy Garcia), who must escort a Japanese Mafia boss, Sato (Yusaku Koyama), back to Japan, where he will serve his sentence. However, things don't seem quite so routine when the killer's buddies turn up at the airport flashing fake I.D.s, taking the man back under their wing. Soon enough, Nick and Charlie find themselves in the middle of a Yakuza gang war.

Considering Nick's corrupt reputation back in the States, Matsumoto (Ken Takakura) is chosen to watch over him to make sure things don't get out of hand. This strikes an interesting conflict of culture and personality within the story: The noble, respectful Japanese cop vs. the ruthless, hot head American, with both, at times, having trouble understanding the other person's methods in pursuing criminals.

I thought Douglas was fantastic in his role, whose character traits reminded me of Mel Gibson playing Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon. Andy Garcia, too, did a decent job in his performance -- I found him a lot more tolerable than I did in The Godfather Part III.

Black Rain, however, is not without its problems. Kate Capshaw is cast as an irrelevant love interest, and the scenes involving her break up the violent and masculine direction that I wished the story would've kept striding on towards. Scott's notion of character development is admirable in most instances of his work, but here I felt frustrated at times by the pacing and overlong running time. Even the motorcycle chase finale didn't excite me as much as I anticipated it would, considering the intriguing undertone that came before it.

Still, with most things considered, Black Rain is a decent enough cop drama, if only memorable for Douglas' performance as a tough veteran NYPD officer, who looks damn cool in a pair of shades and riding a motorcycle.

(C) Andy Carrington, 2009.