Strange Days (1995)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Overrated

Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Director Kathryn Bigelow, a true talent, pulls out all the stops in this stunning retro futuristic tale of paranoia, conspiracy, murder, and corruption set in the final few days before New Year's Eve of 1999, in a frenzied, chaotic, y2k swept Los Angeles.Ralph Fiennes plays Lenny Nero, a lovable ex cop sleaze all who sells 'wire trips' the newest street drug, which consists of plugging in someone else's pre-recorded experiences into your own cerebral cortex, and feeling, seeing, hearing, experiencing it for yourself. Naturally the technology becomes illegal, and much of the recorded content is of the lurid, fetishistic and sometimes downright nasty variety. Tensions arise as an unknown tormentor begins to send Nero vile snuff clips of themselves killing people who know too much about some nefarious deeds being committed on the eve of the new millennium. Saying anymore would spoil the fun, of which there is a tremendous amount of in this film.Fiennes is a scrappy goof as the lover not fighter Nero, and indeed the genre stereotype gets upended, leaving most of the violent heroics to his longtime friend and driver Mace, played with touching reserve and sexy tenacity by the excellent Angela Bassett, who carries the film by default, being pretty much the only well balanced, this side of sane character. Tom Sizemore is also a lovable goof as Lenny's ex cop buddy, the sultry Juliette Lewis is spellbinding (she does all her own singing) as Lenny's ex. The underrated Michael Wincott also shows up, as well as Vincent Donofrio and William Fichtner as two of the scariest, maniacal villains the film could ask for.I haven't the slightest idea why this film ever slipped through the cracks and wasn't more profilic upon release, it's is dazzling, flashy, intelligent and well ahead of its time. That news years party scene is a wonder to behold in blü ray and a huge highlight, creating a thundering climax that will rock your senses. Highly recommended.

And if your memories could be recorded in a disc and you could see and feel everything again as you were right back on that specific moment? That's the premise for STRANGE DAYS! We are in L.A. at 30th December of 1999 and the new millennium is about to begin. In the black-market you can buy a new "drug" which can drive you into POV experiences of other people's lives, seeing, hearing and feeling what that person recorded. And it could be anything, from someone making sex, running at the beach, making an assault or even the "blackjacks": violations, murders and even the death of the person who was recording! That's a voyeuristic kind of experience but also an addiction that could be easily compared to a drug...But that's just the premise of the movie, and the most interesting part of it in my opinion (In fact I watched this film for the first time back in 1996 and that was the only thing I remembered from it...). So the 2000's new years eve and this "new drug" are just the context to what is in fact an action thriller about cops, the abuse of authority, and the tension between cops and black people in L.A...I enjoyed the movie, but also the soundtrack! It has some nice kicking rock songs of the 90's (including the ones sung by Juliette Lewis!) and it made me feel like 20 years ago listening to those songs. The acting is also fine, especially from Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett. I score it 7/10.

It's the last days of 1999 in a violent Los Angeles. Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is an ex-cop who trades in clips of recorded memories. Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) records the wearer's brain waves which can be played and experienced. The technology is illegal and he works in the black market. Meanwhile, call girl Iris (Brigitte Bako) barely escapes from policemen Burton Steckler (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Dwayne Engelman (William Fichtner). They discover that she was wearing a SQUID. She finds her friend Lenny's car and slips him a clip. Lenny still misses his ex Faith Justin (Juliette Lewis) who left him for music producer Philo Gant (Michael Wincott). Max Peltier (Tom Sizemore) is Lenny's brash scraggly lowlife friend. Mace (Angela Bassett) is his more put-together friend.Fiennes has great jittery sleaziness. I like the idea of this gritty near-future including its campy touches. James Cameron may have stuffed in too much story. The movie needs to cut out something and I would probably pick Faith. Iris can instead be Lenny's ex. It would elevate the intense need to find her. The rest could be a great revenge film. The movie is so full that it doesn't really need the extra twist. Kathryn Bigelow's direction is good although she may need more substance to throw at the screen. She needs a bit more special effects and a little less of the cheaper looking real world stuff. A desolate street is just as effective as one filled with people. It looks like she tried to stage multiple riots which ends up looking cheesy. The money could be better spent with a trashed abandoned bad side of the town. The story gets a bit too complex and some simplification would be helpful.

Before going into this review, I was under the impression that this film was going to be an action-packed, futuristic, sci-fi experience when in reality it more closely resembled a "what if scenario" of the world (or apparently just LA) going down the drain. It plays on a lot of people's fears about the end of the world and conspiracy theories, especially back then with the uncertainty of ringing in the new millennium. With that out of the way, I found the concept of being able to record memories and loading them onto disks to be shared to be very intriguing because of the possibilities for asynchronous communication. While not being able to communicate instantaneously, it should be noted that the sharing of memories and even physical sensations gave users the sense of looking through another person's eyes (or living in another man's shoes). The film's take on virtual reality was something I'd never seen before played out. As seen in the film, this can and was easily abused, being illegally marketed in the form of a digital drug and using them as surveillance to spy on people.