Blade Runner

Blade Runner is indeed a mesmerising peek into the near future. Set in a horribly polluted Los Angeles teeming with street urchins, the story serves as a device to explore this neon nightmare that is Ridley Scott's vision of things to come.

Harrison Ford is Deckard, a bounty hunter or blade runner who must hunt down escaped replicants (a group of genetically-pioneered robots with human appearance and super-human abilities designed to build colonies in space) in the crowded streets of a futuristic slum crawling with strange inhabitants. Just as Deckard finds their trail, his sentiments are shifted by his romantic involvement with Rachel (Young), a beautiful replicant who has been equipped with emotions and an artificial set of memories by her creator Tyrell.

Although handicapped by a script that takes a bit too much from the detective films of the late 1940s, director Scott makes each scene count visually. Science fiction fans will revel in the complexities of Lawrence G. Paul's elaborate production design, a wondrous maze of steam and slime that obviously has Scott's stamp on it. the director fares much better with scenery than actors. Harrison Ford, though a competent leading man, is reduced to a one-dimensional gumshoe clone who spends more time explaining the story via voice-overs than he does taking action. Weaknesses aside, Blade Runner is a stunning film, now elevated to the status of cult classic.

David Linck