44. Strange Days

I have never been more disgusted with the movie-going public than I was the weekend of October 13–15, 1995, when America ignored Kathryn Bigelow’s visionary sci-fi masterpiece in favor of Jim Carrey giving Tarzan yodels out of his ***. Strange Days  has since languished in obscurity despite brilliant kinetic action, great characters, a unique visual style, and daring social criticism. Though history has since overtaken the movie’s not-too-distant future, its themes of voyeurism and control remain undiminished.

It’s the last day of 1999, and LA hustler Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is cruising for customers. He deals in black-market technology, so-called "squid" gear which allows the recording and playback of direct human experiences. One of those recordings holds the spark to a powder keg, threatening to consume a city divided by racial and class inequities. Bigelow revels in the near-anarchy of millennium LA, expertly guiding our eager eyes and then hitting us with the cost of looking. We share the visceral thrills of her tech-addled protagonists without escaping the consequences, a balancing act that few films have the courage to attempt.

Strange Days also marks a career high for Angela Bassett, unforgettable as Lenny’s tough-as-nails associate Mace. Their unlikely partnership underscores the film’s social conscience, which finds dark power in a sequence where the police pull over and execute a notorious black motorist. Considering the still-fresh wounds of the Rodney King riots (to say nothing of OJ Simpson, who was acquitted less than two weeks before the film’s release), Bigelow and company demonstrated remarkable courage in confronting and exploring those issues -- despite a falsely upbeat ending which clashes with the previous 130 minutes. Ace Ventura offered cheap gags for the timid that opening weekend; forgotten in its shadow, Strange Days showed us what real filmmaking could do. (Rob Vaux)