Blade Runner

In a bleak and not too distant future, the Blade Runner unit of the LAPD is charged with tracking down and “retiring” rogue replicants, or highly intelligent human cyborgs produced by an ignominious global corporation. When six of these androids escape from their transport and seek refuge in the city, tainted detective Richard Deckard (Harrison Ford) is assigned to the deadly case, never suspecting he’d fall for one their own (Sean Young) he meets along the trail. Bearing just a passing resemblance to Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is a triumph in set design and visuals, which alone justify the price of admission, even if the plot is uninvolving, the romantic subplot doesn’t bear much weight, and the film is as cold and lifeless as one of its cyborgs. The Ford performance is unlikable, awkward, and amateur, probably by design, and Rutger Hauer is frighteningly electric. Following the initial studio cut, which features putrid, dumbed down Phillip Marlowe like narration, the film went through several subsequentcuts, varying in different degrees, Scott’s final cut in 2007 probably being the most worthy of your time.
*** out of ****