Gattaca (1997)

Gattaca (1997, Andrew Niccol)

Gattaca  is set in a future in which genetic engineering has become the norm: the perfect babies with their meticulously selected characteristics are called Valids, those still conceived in the normal way In-valids. The In-valids are of course considered second-class citizens: what's supposed to be a Utopia, is in fact a Dystopia.

The film tells the story of an In-valid called Vincent (Ethan Hawke) whose lifelong dream it is to make a space trip to Saturn, an enterprise not open to In-valids. With the help of a DNA broker, he gets the chance to fulfill his dreams by adopting the identity of  a Valid called Jerome (Jude Law), a former swimming champion who was paralyzed in a car accident. Jerome gives him samples of his blood and urine to pass the admission tests and Vincent has a leg operation to become four inches taller and look more like a former sports crack ...  

Gattaca was praised for its introspective nature: for once a SF movie did not rely on special effects and odd techno-gadgets, but rather on the moral ambiguities of genetic engineering and questions about identity in a world where people have no control over their own lives unless they break the law. It was called 'thought-provoking' and 'scientifically provocative' and it's often said that the film vitalized the discussions on the controversial topic of genetic engineering. Note however that most issues the script raises, are only hinted at, and never really examined in detail. Instead the whole thing is played out more or less like a paranoia thriller:  Vincent/Jerome becomes the main suspect in a murder case and we ask ourselves if the police - or the colleague he's flirting with (Uma Thurman) - will find out who he is.

48 Hrs.

48 Hrs. (1982, Walter Hill)

Often mentioned as the first 'buddy-cop-action-comedy' (yes, that's quite a mouthful), a sub genre very popular in the 80s and 90s. If it wasn't the first, it was the most trendsetting, if only for casting Eddie Murphy (fresh from Saturday Night Live) as the well-dressed, ultra cool inmate who is released for 48 hours to help hard nosed, shabby cop Nick Nolte tracking down two cop killers and a missing sum of money.

Mixing strong violence with fairly lighthearted comedy, director Walter Hill introduced a brisk, tongue-in-cheek style of film making that would dominate Hollywood action movies (not only cop thrillers) for the next decade. He was asked by the producers to tone down the violence, but the action scenes are still quite potent, notably an early shootout in a hotel which sets the whole thing in motion.

The film works thanks to the charisma of the two leads, but the rather flimsy script  (see under miscellaneous) has not emerged unscathed from the numerous rewritings it was submitted to. A more intriguing idea about the criminals kidnapping the local governor's daughter and threatening to kill her within 48 hours unless a large ransom money is paid, was dropped in favour of more screen time for Murphy and his routines. The scene with Murphy personating as a police offer and searching and snarling at a redneck ("I'm you worst nightmare, a nigger with a badge!") is a standout, other routines have become too familiar over the years.

48 Hrs. is still quite enjoyable, but it suffers from this typical noisiness that marred many movies from the Eighties, with the actors shouting at each other most of the time (apparently that was supposed to be funny in those days) . The shouting wears you off after a while, but luckily the film has a running-time of a mere 90 minutes.

Miscellaneous:

The film apparently had a long and interesting genesis: the original idea of a cop solving a kidnapping with the help of a released inmate (the former partner of the kidnapper) dates from the early Seventies. According to Walter Hill, he was asked in the late Seventies to rewrite the script as a vehicle for Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor, but the project was abandoned because Eastwood wanted to play the criminal. The project then went from Columbia to Paramount and was finally turned into a Murphy-Nolte vehicle, with Walter Hill co-scripting and directing

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