ROBERT LONGO
Bil’s rating (out of 5): BBB.
Canada/USA, 1995. TriStar Pictures, Alliance Communications Corporation, Cinévision, Peter Hoffman. Screenplay by William Gibson, based on his short story. Cinematography by Francois Protat. Produced by Don Carmody. Music by Mychael Danna, Brad Fiedel. Production Design by Nilo Rodis-Jamero. Costume Design by Olga Dimitrov. Film Editing by Ronald Sanders.
Enjoyable science-fiction flick stars Keanu Reeves as a cyber-age messenger who delivers encrypted computer data to buyers around the world. The information is stored on a computer chip implanted in his brain, from which he has dumped some of his own personal childhood memories in order to make room for highly coveted files that corporations are willing to kill over. His latest package is a secret formula from a pharmaceutical company that can cure the world epidemic of Nerve Attenuation Disease (basically ADD made physical), but the size of the data is an overload for his brain and if he doesn’t deliver it in time he could die. It’s a cool concept for a story, and it really does feel like a comic book has to come to life before your very eyes, but there are also too many times when the story gets bogged down in mindless explosions. The characters are fun, from Reeves’s appropriately dry hero to Dina Meyer‘s tough female sidekick and the cameo by a totally wacky Henry Rollins.
