Times when Arnold Schwarzenegger could have counted on himself as bankable action film star are long past us. They were actually long past us in 1990s, but Schwarzenegger had to discover this fact the hard way, by playing in series of flops, commercially and artistically way below his golden 1980s days. One of such films was Eraser, directed by Chuck Russell in 1996 and released in American cinemas by Warner Bros. as that studio's lame attempt to compete with Independence Day juggernaut.
In this film Schwarzenegger plays John Kruger a.k.a. Eraser, US marshal specialised for protecting federal witnesses by "erasing" their identity. Most of his clients are criminals, barely better from the scum their testimonies are going to put to jail. However, his latest client is someone quite different - Lee Cullen (played by Vanessa Williams), one of executives of Cyrez Corporation, who has just discovered that her company is involved in selling secret superweapon – so-called "rail gun" - to foreign governments, terrorists and other suspicious-looking parties. As good citizen she decided to report this thing to FBI and Kruger, who likes to work alone, is assigned to protect her. However, it turns out that the shady arms selling deal involves people at the top levels of US government and the conspiracy includes even Kruger's boss and mentor Robert Deguerin (played by James Caan). After being set-up for murder, Kruger must not only protect Cullen, but also try to find proof of his own innocence.
Creators of Eraser employed many ingredients of the formula that had worked in Schwarzenegger's past successes - big budget, plenty of explosions, shoot-outs, massive bodycount, good-looking woman as his partner, some one-liners. But in 1990s this formula couldn't have worked without someone like James Cameron behind camera. Director Chuck Russell, until that time best-known for boosting Jim Carey's career in The Mask, definitely wasn't James Cameron. The script - originally written by Tony Puryear, than massacred by five additional screenwriters and script doctors - didn't help either. Schwarzenegger definitely has charisma and at least some acting ability, but you couldn't know from this film, in which his character is utterly one-dimensional and even some of the action scenes look boring. Vanessa Williams, former Miss America, also leaves a lot of doubt in her acting abilities, especially when compared with James Caan, James Coburn and small army of veteran character actors in thankless roles or even worse comic reliefs. Badness of Eraser becomes even more irritating when viewers start pondering about various plot holes and scientific implausibilities, including protagonist's ability to dodge bullets that are supposed to be almost as fast as light. Because all of that, Eraser is a less a film that didn't need much effort to be erased from viewers' memories. RATING: 2/10 (-)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on January 20th 2003)
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