Women film directors are rare now and were even rarer in past century. Those who made their name in macho realm of action cinema tended to stand out, like Kathryn Bigelow. Yet, her films were anything but women’s films, with only few having female protagonist, like her 1990 thriller Blue Steel.
Protagonist, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, is Megan Turner, woman who has just graduated from New York City Police Academy. Duting her first assignment on the streets of crime-infested city she sees supermarket being held up by violent armed robber (played by Tom Sizemore). She intervenes and blasts the robber away, but that event triggers something in Eugene Hunt (played by Ron Silver), commodities trader who happened to be in supermarket. He impulsively steals robber’s .44 Magnum revolver and leaves, causing Megan trouble when she has to justify her action to superiors afterwards. Megan’s problems become even worse when Eugene decides to use his newly acquired weapon to randomly kill people on the street. He is also obsessed by Megan and tries to seduce her before she realises that he is killer. Eugene is, however, very intelligent and leaves no evidence of his crimes and instead begins to torment Megan by targeting her friends and family. Megan is determined to stop him and gets help from homicide detective Nick Mann (played by Clancy Brown).
Blue Steel was supposed to be iconic role for Jamie Lee Curtis as Hollywood’s new female action star and natural progression from her archetypal Final Girl performance in Halloween. The plot represented something of a combination of Dirty Harry and The Hitcher (the latter had been written by Bigelow’s co-writer Eric Red) with the premise of single policewoman having to deal with demented but seemingly unstoppable killer. The audience was, however, more impressed by Bigelow’s style, especially in the hold up scene, which featured her skills in handling action and suspense: the scene also featured Curtis’ best performance in the film realistically depicting someone inexperienced, reasonably fearful yet determined to handle dangerous situation. Blue Steel also benefited a lot from cinematography of Amir Mokri that made many images look “cool”, especially those in which Bigelow displays revolvers with almost fetishistic enthusiasm and plenty of Freudian symbolism.
Unfortunately, in the second part, Blue Steel ceases to be that interesting and the novelty of having tough but realistic action heroine is replaced with series of annoying cliches, as well as plenty of opportunity for critically-minded viewers notice plot holes and implausible details. While Ron Silver plays his demented character very well and can even pass him as charming enough to seduce unsuspecting protagonist, that same character is shown both as raging lunatic who hears voices in his head and person with almost demonic intelligence and ability to always be one step ahead of Megan and the rest of police. Script somehow manages to add even some romantic subplot between Megan and Nick, resulting in rather unnecessary sex scenes. Same can be said about subplot dealing with Megan’s parents (played by Louise Fletcher and Philip Bosco). Blue Steel also misses opportunities for some social commentary with hints of villain avoiding justice because of his privileged yuppie status (something that would Brett Easton Ellis would later use much better in his novel American Psycho). Those who like Curtis and well-directed action would probably appreciate this film, but for the rest it would be just another triumph of style over substance, so characteristic of 1980s and early 1990s.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/9491-blue-steel Critic: AA
