Rising Sun (1993)

Directed by Philip Kaufman. Starring Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes, Harvey Keitel, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Tia Carrere, Stan Egi, Mako, Ray Wise, Kevin Anderson, Stan Shaw, Steve Buscemi, Tatjana Patitz, Amy Hill, Daniel Von Bargen. [R]

An LAPD officer with a checkered past (Snipes) and an expert in Japanese culture (Connery) pair up as liaisons during the investigation into a prostitute’s murder at a gala celebrating a new L.A.-based headquarters for a Japanese conglomerate. The ingredients are here for a slick and entertaining mystery-thriller, but there are too many ingredients distracting focus, and pieces missing in between to plausibly connect the dots. The examination into the crime has nowhere to go besides pepper in the red herrings—it all comes down to a doctored piece of surveillance footage on a disk, looked at again and again—while a similar examination into the potential pitfalls of corporate collaboration between the U.S. and Japan is superficial at best (you remember the thrillingly ominous taiko drumming more than any detail involving two companies moving toward an acquisition deal). Connery gets to play wise and wily, but he’s too cross and knowing to ease the audience into the joke with that old-fashioned panache; Snipes does exactly what you’d expect from him in this kind of role, no more, no less; and their partnership won’t have you fondly recalling the forced sempai-kohai dialogue as the credits start to roll. Adapted from a Michael Crichton novel.

47/100