Rising Sun

Rising Sun is a textbook example of how to take a sure-fire, can't lose property and muck it up completely. It's not just a matter of the producers controversially changing the nationality of the killer that makes Rising Sun such a disappointment: where Michael Crichton's novel weaved a multi-stranded web, turning issues into clues and bombarding the reader with information and clues to keep you guessing, director Philip Kaufman simplifies and makes it all patently predictable. Subplots are poorly handled, often either never followed through or simply forgotten, and you don't even care that much about who done it, or why.

Of course, there is a difference between what makes a good book and what makes a good film, but before the rot set in Crichton didn't just write novels that read well, he wrote novels that play - turning one of his books into a film should be more a matter of editing than adapting. Yet, extraordinarily, the producers have either dropped or diluted everything that made the novel such a huge bestseller.

Crichton's strength was always his ability to put over big issue in a pulp format, but while Kaufman does tidy up his typically messy ending, hedrops most of the issues, patronisingly soft-pedalling the novel's economic/political debate, leaving just the pulp. It's rather like making The Third Man and ditching all that guff about cuckoo clocks and black marketeering, and getting rid of Orson for good measure. It may now be a gaijin who kills the girl, but it's Kaufman who kills the movie.

Kaufman has shown he can take mainstream material and imbue it with a greater significance and still turn out a terrific picture with Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Right Stuff (and let's not forget, he was one of the creators of Indiana Jones), but perhaps he'd just spent too long making art movies in the interim. Here there's a snobbery to his direction, a contempt for his material that shines through in almost every frame - he thinks he's better than this, but still comes out looking like an amateur.

Where Crichton's novel was not the racist tract many claimed at the time (Crichton's criticism wass aimed directly at America's short-sighted business/political strategy), Kaufman's film comes perilously close to being just that. The xenophobia of the scene where Snipes sets some homeboys on the Japanese who are following him is an uncomfortable and tasteless exercise in ethnic stereotyping that doesn't belong in this movie.

The most astonishing lapse is in the appallingly acted and staged scene where Snipes is interrogated by his superiors. While this provides the novel with an effective framing device, only a complete idiot would include the American PR man for the Japanese corporation implicated in the conspiracy and a muckraking reporter among those present. Kaufman does. Not only is he hopeless at staging action, but scenes such as the suicide are handled with an ineptitude bordering on the infantile while some of the sexual overtones are feeble beyond belief - hey, don't forget that close-up of the next door neighbour's crotch so we know what Wesley's thinking, Phil! If anything, the absolute stinker of an epilogue is even worse, coming on like the warm wrap-up to a 70s cop show and spelling out Connery and Carrere's relationship just in case we're too thick to work it out for ourselves.

Much blame for this must attach itself to executive producer Sean Connery. Too many years of being denied his due as an actor and still, one suspects, trying to overcompensate for his years in Bondage have left him a sucker for a 'quality' director and a name writer, often with disastrous consequences (cf. A Good Man in Africa). Yet if Kaufman kills the movie, Connery gives it the kiss of life. Connery is never less than watchable, and he's certainly one of the few things worth watching here, whether barking Japanese in a Scottish accent or deliberately losing at golf. It's one of the best displays of pure star quality energising a moribund picture you're likely to see.

Wesley Snipes is wildly miscast in a role that didn't just have Andy Garcia's name on it but his address and a photo of his wife and kids as well. Instead we get a another of his typically one-note aggressiveone-size-fits all performances. Supporting performances are dubious at best, with Mako, Carey-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Stan Egi faring best, countered by Ray Wise and Kevin Anderson, both even phonier than their roles.

When Rising Sun concentrates on the plot mechanics, such as the manipulation of an incriminating recording of the murder, it's fine, but what should have been great is merely an average potboiler distinguished by Connery's presence. Rupert Murdoch, who took a strong personal interest in the picture, said that if they got it wrong they deserved a sound kick in the a**. If you happen to run into him, you might want to take him up on that.

Rising Sun is directed by Philip Kaufman who also co-writes with Michael Crichton and Michael Backes, with the adaptation coming form Crichton's own novel of the same name. It stars Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes, Harvey Keitel, Ray Wise and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. Music is by Tôru Takemitsu and cinematography by Michael Chapman. Story sees Capt. John Connor (Connery) and Lt. Webster "Web" Smith (Snipes) paired together to try and solve the mystery of a woman murdered at a Japanese high corporation party. With powerful people possibly involved and relations between the American and Japanese people starting to strain, Connor and Smith must crack the case sooner rather than later. A tough ask because there's the distinct whiff of a cover up in the air and only a grainy CCTV video as evidence to go on.

It was a controversial novel, a best seller for sure, but Michael Crichton was accused of crafting an anti-Japanese diatribe, though in some quarters it was heralded as a wake up call that America was losing the business war to Japan. Even though Crichton was brought in to adapt the screenplay, it ultimately stands as Kaufman's work because alterations have been made to Crichton's text to balance out, as it were, the villainy/corruption quota between the two opposing cultures. The end result is a film that has no real urgency, excitement, tension or boldness; unless the sexual deviant behaviour of the poor lady murdered counts for the latter that is? Clearly Kaufman and Crichton are not meant to be, the former's stylish leanings can't harness the intricate paranoia from Crichton's page, which ultimately leaves us with a rather routine murder mystery. Shame, because the thirst third is pretty great stuff, visually arresting and with characters formed, story simmers nicely like it's going to boil over into murky intrigue and cross cultural bitterness. Sadly it doesn't.

The director tries to beef things up with some nudity, confrontations and a number of shifty characters on the edges of the frame, but these only still further bring home just how ponderous the story actually is. There's no raising the pulse for the finale either, it may try and come off as an ambiguous tester, but ultimately it's lightweight and wasn't worth the wait. Cast wise Connery and Snipes work well together in that father figure/student way (or sempai/kohai to be exactly on plotting), but the former's gruff beefy charm is diluted and Snipes is given very little to do. Keitel turns in an interesting one, as does Ray Wise, but even these portrayals tend to shine only because what's around them is borderline dull. It does look nice though, where a very modernist sheen plays host to some shifty shenanigans. Perhaps it really is a simple case of too much compromise going on in here? Hell, Kaufman even changed the killer from that of the one in the novel. But considering the talent involved in the production and a fire-cracker source to work from , this really should have been much better. A wasted chance it remains. 4/10

An excellant movie, a crime thriller that keeps you guessing from start to finish. Brilliant cast members and acting, a must see for any fans of Connery or Snipes. However there is a dissapointing lack of extra features on the DVD version.