Blade Runner

Blade Runner (1982)
Director: Ridley Scott
Actors: Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer
Memorable Line: "And all these memories will be lost, like tears in rain."

Blade Runner is a visual treat. Now, you might an opening line like that in a movie review would be followed with a lot of details about the how the story doesn't equal the style, but the movie delivers a compelling story along with it's entrancing images. The story may seem thin at first blush, but there's a subtle depth told with setting and character.

The setting is Los Angeles in the future and the protagonist is Deckard (Harrison Ford), a "blade runner," a special detective who's job it is to hunt down androids who have decided, against the law, to return to Earth. In his latest assignment, he is charged to track down a group of Replicants (androids) led by a hypnotic and charismatic leader, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer). Deckard's search leads him to an encounter with a captivating young woman played, Rachael (Sean Young) who claims be the daughter of the CEO of the company makes replicants. As the story unfolds, we learn, the surprising truth about Rachael and Deckard learns that he must face the contradictions of his assignments.

Scott provides the viewer a noirish, rain-soaked and dreary future vision of Los Angeles that in spite of itself is luscious and beautiful. Syd Meads design work is a center piece of this fantastical future vision. Douglass Trumbull's effects are all the pre-CGI effects that inhabit the movies of today and all of the effects come off as believable and totally realized.

Ford is cool and laconic as Deckard and Sean Young captures the confused and conflicted Rachael. Rutger Hauer eats up the screen in the few minutes he has and almost steels the show. While the acting is solid, it's the style that carries this movie and Blade Runner is a movie that shouldn't be missed.