Movie Type: Action Thriller, Police Detective Film
Themes: Criminal's Revenge, Race Against Time, Mind Games
Main Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Ron Silver, Clancy Brown, Elizabeth Peña, Louise Fletcher
Release Year: 1990
Country: US
Run Time: 102 minutes
Plot
Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a rookie cop who witnesses a robbery in progress on her first night on the job. With her more experienced partner using the men's room, Megan decides to take action on her own. She creeps into the supermarket where a man (Tom Sizemore in a small role) is holding the clerk at gunpoint. Megan gets close enough to shoot the gunman, and calls out for him to drop his weapon. He spins the gun toward her, and she unloads her service revolver into his chest. His gun goes flying, and a bystander, Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver), surreptitiously picks it up and takes it home. Megan's superiors, unable to confirm that the man she shot was armed, suspend her. Eugene, a wealthy commodities broker, becomes obsessed with Megan. He sets up an "accidental" meeting between them and begins dating her, romancing her with fancy restaurants and helicopter rides over Manhattan. He also carves her name into the bullets he uses to gun down strangers in the street. A tough homicide detective, Nick Mann (Clancy Brown of The Shawshank Redemption), gets Megan's gun and badge back so she can help him track down the psycho killer. Eventually, Megan realizes that Eugene is the killer, but he uses his money and influence to elude the law, and he starts coming after Megan's friends and family. Megan's determination to bring Eugene to justice quickly becomes a very personal obsession. This intense cop drama, Blue Steel, was director Kathryn Bigelow's major studio follow-up to her well-received indie vampire flick, Near Dark. Bigelow co-wrote both films with Eric Red (The Hitcher). ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
Blue Steel is an over-the-top police action-psychodrama with a decidedly feminist bent. The film manages to entertain, despite frequent lapses into silliness. Jamie Lee Curtis does excellent work as Megan Turner, a hardnosed rookie cop who resents the way people respond to her chosen line of work. Frequently asked why she decided to join the force, Megan resorts to sarcasm. "Ever since I was a kid," she tells her partner, "I wanted to shoot people." "I like to slam peoples' heads up against walls," she tells an obnoxious prospective suitor. If Megan's performance in the field shows her as courageous, and an excellent shot, her answers to these questions reveal just how brittle she is. Curtis does a good job of portraying both her strength and her underlying vulnerability. Eugene, the unhinged "master of the universe" portrayed by Ron Silver, predates the Patrick Bateman character in American Psycho, and seems to represent the same kind of consumerism gone amok. But Bateman is a far more interesting character. Silver's performance is so two-dimensionally villainous and transparently creepy that it's a wonder Megan doesn't just arrest him the moment she sees him. Then maybe we'd get to find out more about the family and friends he threatens, all played by fine actors, who are essentially treated as props in the film. The film gets very silly at times, particularly during the unnaturally attenuated final showdown between Megan and Eugene, but it's still enjoyable. The film critiques culture's obsession with guns, as the fascinating opening credit sequence lovingly lingers on close-ups of the shiny surface of Megan's service revolver. Writer/director Kathryn Bigelow also manages to make trenchant points about the barriers faced by women working in a predominantly male profession, a subject she is no doubt intimately familiar with. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Philip Bosco - Frank Turner; Doug Barron - Reporter #1; L. Peter Callender - Reporter; John Capodice - Trial Commissioner; Al Cerullo - Helicopter Pilot; Sam Coppola - PBA Representative; Matt Craven - Howard; Toni Darling - Prostitute; Michael Philip del Rio - John Perez; Thomas Dorff - Businessman Victim; James Drescher - Punk; Kevin Dunn - Assistant Chief Stanley Hoyt; Markus Flanagan - Husband; Harley Flanagan; Faith Geer - Lady Bum; Becky Gelke - Nurse #1; Frank Girardeau - Uniform Cop; Mike Hodge - Police Commissioner; Andrew Hubatsek - Cashier; David Ilku - Counterman; Joe Jamrog - Doorman; Richard Jenkins - Attorney Mel Dawson; Heidi Kempf - TV Announcer; Bellina Logan - Rookie No. 1; Skipp Lynch - Instructor; Mary Mara - Wife; William Jay Marshall - Hood; Ralph Nieves - Homicide Detective; Carol Schneider - Reporter #2; James Shannon - Maitre D'Hotel; Larry Silvestri - Precinct Cop; Tom Sizemore - Wool Cap; Mike Starr - Superintendent; Lauren Tom - Reporter; Chris Walker - Officer Jeff Travers; Reginald Wells - TV Announcer #1; William Wise - Internal Affairs Man
Credit
Michael Flynn - Associate Producer, Billy Hopkins - Casting, Risa Bramon - Casting, Edward R. Pressman - Co-producer, Michael Rauch - Co-producer, Oliver Stone - Co-producer, Richard Shissler - Costume Designer, Kathryn Bigelow - Director, Lee Percy - Editor, Lawrence Kasanoff - Executive Producer, Brad Fiedel - Composer (Music Score), Toni Trimble - Makeup, Toby Corbett - Production Designer, Amir Mokri - Cinematographer, Susan Kaufman - Set Designer, Steve Kirshoff - Special Effects, Jery Hewitt - Stunts, Kathryn Bigelow - Screenwriter, Eric Red - Screenwriter
Megan Turner (Curtis) is a New York City policewoman who shoots and kills a suspect holding up a convenience store. The suspect's gun is taken by a psychopath, Eugene Hunt (Silver), who commits several bloody and brutal murders of young women with it. Because the robber's weapon was not found at the scene, Turner is accused of killing an unarmed suspect. The story follows Turner as she tracks Hunt.
