Ex-Couple Goals

And through their strange hours. (Unmarked Spoilers)

Strange Days is the 1995 cult classic that put director Kathryn Bigelow’s career on life support until she rebounded with The Hurt Locker. In the then-future, two days prior to Y2K, Strange Days is the tale of civil unrest, militant police forces, racial tension, and a high crime rate. You know, kind of like what’s happening right now, Except for how we don’t have the Superconducting Quantum Interference Device or SQUID for short. A device that lets you relive the memories of yourself or others.

Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes), a former police officer, makes a living selling SQUID recordings as the equivalent of a drug dealer. However, he ignores the drug dealing golden rule of not getting high on your own supply. Specifically, he’s addicted to the memories of his ex-girlfriend Faith Justin (Juliette Lewis), who dumped him for an a*shole music producer Philo Gant (Micheal Wincott). Lenny’s only two friends are limo driver/bodyguard Lornette “Mace” Mason (Angela Bassett) and P.I. Max Peltier (Tom Sizemore).

One day, Iris (Brigitte Bako), a friend of Faith who works as a prostitute, comes to Lenny in distress and disarray, telling him that an all-concealing ‘they’ are after her. Later, in the movie’s most controversial scene, Lenny receives a blackjack, the equivalent of a snuff film, depicting Iris’ murder. The killer raped her at the same time too, which the audience has the pleasure of seeing. Like Lenny, you’ll be puking quicker than you can say ‘female director, huh.’

I don’t have a problem with women depicting the brutality against women in their films for the record. The Nightingale is a good movie, and that one has several violent rape scenes in it. The difference is that afterward, it explores the traumas that come with being violated in such a way. In Strange Days, the rape is only there to be edgy. Unnecessarily so because even if they took it out, the manner of Iris’ death would still be appalling.

Iris was on the run from two police officers named Burton Steckler (Vincent D’Onofrio) and Dwayne Engelman (William Fichtner). They’re looking to silence her because she witnessed and made a recording of them murdering Jeriko One (Glenn Plummer), a Tupac stand-in. I don’t know why I’m spoiler tagging this review because a general audience is probably intelligent enough to figure that one out, given the number of times Jeriko One’s death is brought up. Hell, a general audience is also probably smart enough to figure out Max killed Iris because Sizemore plays him. 

Strange Days is a movie that I wanted to like because I felt sucked in by its mythology. It was co-written by James Cameron, Bigelow’s former husband, who is really good at world-building, whenever he’s not naming minerals unobtanium. (To be fair, that is an engineering term, but he seriously couldn’t have come up with something better than that.) The film’s highlight is the SQUID sequences, which are all shot in a long take that feels like someone’s point of view. 

Basset is a fine actress, but her character is a total magical negro. The filmmakers put only the bare minimum of effort into giving Mace a character outside of helping Lenny. She has a son, but he ties back to Lenny too. You see, the reason they met was because when Mace’s ex-husband was being arrested, Lenny took the time to comfort the boy and shield him from what was happening. The unspoken implication is that this event was made all the more meaningful because a white policeman did this in a time of such racial unrest. As far as earning somebody’s loyalty goes, that seems like giving someone a prize for basic decency. I mean, Mace is also clearly in love with him, but still. 

This gets a little lost in the drama of everything unfolding, Strange Days provides a textbook example of the good sex, evil sex trope. The sex scene between Faith and Lenny is sweet and romantic and s**t. Meanwhile, Faith’s sex scene with Max has bondage, asphyxiation and is made to resemble rape. On a side note, Sizemore and Lewis playing characters in a secret relationship is funny after their roles in Natural Born Killers.

At the end of the film, Lenny hands the recording of Jeriko One’s murder to Mace and tells her to give it to Commissioner Palmer Strickland (Josef Sommer), saying if there’s any cop in this city that’s clean, it’s him. So she does, but at first, he seems uncooperative. Then, after Mace subdues Steckler and Engelman, riot officers appear and start beating her because they think she’s the aggressor. Which causes a riot to break out that’s all very Rodney King. Strickland shows up, and Steckler tries to pin the blame on Mace, but Strickland says, ‘arrest these men,’ because he watched the tape after all. So yes, the white authority figure stepped in at the very end to save the day, which is how you can tell the people who made this movie are also white. That’s also surprisingly pro-establishment for a cyberpunk film.

Strange Days is about two hours long. I watched a little over an hour before stopping due to the Cubs game and then picked it up again the next day. Even with that break, Strange Days still felt long as hell. Another thing some people are going to find off-putting is how this movie has the sleaziest cast of characters. If you’re a fan of Cameron or Bigelow, then you should give this one a shot. If not, then there’s no real hurry for you to watch it.