Insomniac Film Festival #101: Rising Sun

In the 1990s, novelist Michael Crichton experienced a renaissance in the film world, starting, ostensibly, with Jurassic Park and continuing with Sphere, Congo, Disclosure, The Thirteenth Warrior and The Lost World: Jurassic Park amongst others. Rising Sun came out in 1993, the same year as Jurassic Park and stars Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery, himself on something of a renaissance in film that started with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Harvey Keitel and Tia Carrerre are also here.

Snipes and Keitel are investigating a murder of an escort in a boardroom at a Japanese owned building in Los Angeles. Connery is their liaison. He is supposed to advise on the cultural differences in the US-Japanese relations. There is a lot of intrigue and much more than just the mystery around the murder going on.

The cultural differences tropes seem like an excuse for a lot of racism disguised as misunderstandings and a lot of overt racism by Keitel's character.

This movie doesn't quite work and I wanted to enjoy it but it was very hard to get into.

Having said that, Snipes and Connery give strong, committed performances and the movie moves at a pretty good clip. It was fascinating, as well, to see all of the technological aspects of the story on display.

-all photos via IMDb.com.