One of these days, someone will write a honest history of American movies and it won't be Martin Scorsese. This history will show that US movies died in the late sixties and were replaced by what seemed at first a "more personal cinema" that quickly degenerated into the glorification of the criminal lifestyle ("Bonnie and Clyde", "The Godfather") and raising the violent content every year. "Personal" became "formula" and the formula was = sadistic violence + unidimensional action anti-hero + comic book plot with extremely well delineated villains who commit repulsive crimes + kaboom! + possibility of a sequel. "Striking Distance" is the epitome of that formula, except for the fact that it was so bad on every level and the clichés were so transparent no one ever considered making a sequel. If you take into account the number of plot clichés in the film, it can already be considered a sequel to a thousand other films, one that is so degenerate they didn't even bother to give it the name of the preceding piece of trash. The funny thing is this was considered mainstream film-making in the 90's and all the actors are, if not brilliant, at least famous and expensive. On an appearance in May 2004 on "On the Record with Bob Costas" (2001), Bruce Willis actually apologized to the movie-going public for this film, saying that "it sucked". He might as well have apologized for most of the American films of the 70's, 80's and 90's.
Review of Striking Distance
