CineBad!!!

I actually watched this movie twice. The second time I saw it, I hadn’t realized that I’d already seen it a couple of years before until about half-way through. Even then, I finished watching it again simply because I couldn’t remember any of it. So here I am, trying to write a review. The thing that stands out most in my mind is the fact that a bunch of guys in kilts played “the Kesh Jig” on highland bagpipes in one scene. After I saw Strange Days the second time, I remembered that from the first time as well. But what else happened in the movie? I must have blocked it out due to the presence of Juliette Lewis.

These strange days take place around December 31st, 1999. The fact that they do so is fairly inconsequential to the plot, if I remember correctly. I think the big plot climax had to take place during a big crowd scene, so why not make it in Times Square on New year’s Eve, 1999? Ralph Fiennes plays Lenny Nero, an ex-cop who now makes a living dealing in “playback”– virtual reality discs that allow you to experience other peoples’ sensations as they do things you normally don’t do, like rob restaurants and have sex. You hook a network of electrodes called a “squid” to your head, which allows you to see, feel, taste (and presumably smell) everything the people on the discs are experiencing. Naturally, this form of entertainment is illegal. Naturally, it also eventually fries your brain.

Lenny comes across a disc of a hooker being raped and killed. He is repulsed by it, yet also fascinated. It gives this movie a plot, which I think is really complicated. I don’t remember anything more, until the bagpiping scene near the end. I think I figured out what the problem is here– Ralph Fiennes is one of my favorite actors. Yet, Juliette Lewis causes me to run screaming for cover. I think the combination of the two in this movie neutralizes it, and makes it completely leak out of my brain. But it is 1999, and virtual reality technology has come along amazingly since the dark ages of 1995. Maybe I’ve just been doing too much “playback.”