Review of Rising Sun

Rising Sun (1993)
6/10
OK on its own terms
1 September 2007
A woman is strangled to death while having sex in a Japaneses' corporation building. Lt. Webster Smith (Wesley Snipes) and Japan expert Captain John Connor (Sean Connery) are assigned to solve it. All the evidence points to her Japanese boyfriend but there's more to this than meets the eye.

Michael Crichtons novel was a frightening and powerful story about how it seemed (at the time) that Japanese corporations were taking over everything. As an adaptation to that this is a joke. Smith is made black for no good reason, the anti-Japanese slant was toned down a lot, there was no romantic interest between Snipes and Tia Carrere as is shown in this movie and the identity of the killer was completely changed! It really destroyed the book. But, if you ignore the book, this is OK on its own terms.

It's well done and written and there's some good acting by Connery, Ray Wise (as a slimy senator), Harvey Keitel (as a cop) and Steve Buscemi (still not sure what he was). But the story is way too convoluted, goes on far too long and has an ending which is more than confusing. Also Connery and Snipes do not work well together. There's no spark between them--they seem to be acting in different movies. There's also plenty of pointless female nudity. This lessens what could have been a good strong movie. So it's an OK thriller. Worth catching if you're a Connery fan. The book is much better.
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