I recently rewatched several 90’s movies in the last week, including Independence Day, and The Crow. The former didn’t live up to my nostalgia though it did have some fun elements still, but the later?
If anything, I like it more.
The controversy around it is likely familiar to many over an age, as an accident with a “prop” (in this case real) gun resulted in an overhaul the safety procedures related to firearms on set. Too bad Alec Baldwin hadn’t heard of the term. With filming nearly complete, the decision was made to go ahead and put together a film using rewrites, a stunt double and camera tricks, and a few bits of FX, to put together a story that nevertheless still works. It differs markedly from the source comic, but not in in a “only stole the title for name recognition” way.
The result is at times uneven, and the acting isn’t always the best. Eric’s dialog is often literary quotes and references, pretentious in a way that he can’t quite carry off every time yet mostly works as fitting with the story and theme. The action sequences, however, border on the poetic.
In the end you basically end up with a film that is a supernatural John Wick mixed with a dash of Die Hard, but with a goth sense of style later stolen by the Matrix.
There is no “big heist,” but Die Hard comes into this because of officer Albrecht played by Ernie Hudson of Ghostbusters fame. Much like John McClaine had Al Powell, Eric Draven over time gains the help of Albrecht, who like Powell is pursuing truth and honor at cross-purposes to his department and the legal authorities around him.
John Wick is relevant because in the end the core of the Crow centers on an unstoppable being bent on vengeance to right the wrongs done unto him.
As the movie starts a young girl’s voice tells us of the legend of a crow that carries souls to the land of the dead. If the person died in tragic circumstances the crow can resurrect their restless spirit to set things right.
Eric is a musician who was going to marry his girlfriend Shelly, but on devil’s night their home is invaded by a local gang due to them fighting an eviction notice. Shelly is beaten and raped, dying later in the hospital. Eric is shot and thrown out the window to his death. The death is investigated in part by Albrecht, who says some kind words to Sarah, an urchin who spends more time on the streets than not due to her addict and drug-addled mother. Sarah was a long term friend of Eric and Shelly, and Albrecht takes her under his wing as much as he can keep an eye on her as a beat cop.
A year later, after Sarah visits is grave, Eric emerges, gasping, uncertain, a revenant, following the crow to his old apartment where he learns of/remembers what happened, and discovers that he heals almost instantly from even major wounds. Donning makeup in a joker-like white clown mask, he sets off to exact his vengeance.
The pieces are all in place. Eric is hunting his prey - the gang that murdered him and his fiancee. The gang, comprised of T-bird, Tin Tin, Fun Boy, and Skank, is getting ready for a night of arson and mayhem for devil’s night. Sarah is on the streets, not wanting to go home because her mother has been shooting up and is spending time with Fun Boy. Ordering T-bird’s gang around among others is Detroit’s crime boss, Top Dollar, with headquarters above a nightclub.
Eric works his way through the gang - first guided to Tin Tin by the crow, then to a pawn shop where he lets the storekeep survive in order to warn the rest. His search for the engagement ring he gave Shelly where he’s searching by touch and the psychic impression, clarifies an earlier scene - it’s not just the places and sights returning his memories, he’s absorbing the psychic imprint left behind by joy or pain. This becomes critical later.
Albrecht: Police! Don't move! I said, "Don't move!"
Eric Draven: I thought the police always said, "Freeze!"
Albrecht: Well, I am the police, and I say, "Don't move" Snow White. You move, you're dead.
Eric Draven: And I say, "I'm dead," and I move.
The explosion of destroying the pawn shop attracts the attention of the police in the person of Albrecht, who loses track of Draven glancing over at looters. It also soon becomes clear that Albrecht and the lead detective have little love lost.
It’s worth noting that each of the gang dies in a way appropriate to their vices. Tin Tin loves his knife play, and dies a pincushion. Fun Boy loved his drugs, and is killed through a massive deliberate overdose. T-bird loves his car - and is blown up in it. Skank? Well, that’s the least clear connection, but he is defenestrated much like Eric was. Myca, Top Dollar’s half-sister with whom he has an incestuous relationship is obsessed with the occult. She realizes the crow is the source of Eric’s power, but in the end is blinded and ultimately killed by the power she tried to seize. Top Dollar is run through by a spire, in keeping with those he skewered with his sword.
Top Dollar and Myca would likely have survived if they had not chosen to get in Eric’s way. Eric only wanted the gang - and Top Dollar insisted on not only defending Skank, but in kidnapping Sarah to kill or Destroy Eric. If he had not been so set on maintaining his power and eliminating any threats to his position or appearance of strength, he could have let Eric kill Skank, and Eric’s sense of vengeance would have been slaked.
Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children. Do you understand? Morphine is bad for you. Your daughter is out there on the streets waiting for you.
While the movie centers on vengeance, it is also about redemption. Eric is seeking redemption and justice for letting the love of his life get raped and killed. While the men directly responsible are walking dead, Eric didn’t add anyone to the victims list that didn’t work to get in the way. Eric also works to help out Sarah, literally saving her twice as well as freeing her mother from both Fun Boy and her addiction. This bit of magic is unexplained, but his grip and will cause the morphine she’d been injecting to leave her body through the needle tracks on her arms. Freed of her haze, Darla begins to turn herself, and her relationship with her daughter, around. Eric also brings closure to Office Albrecht, in giving him a chance to put to bed a case that had been haunting him.
The goth crowd in the 90’s was didn’t just dress in black. Many wore religious symbols, and many delved into the occult. The look and feel of the movie mirrors that perfectly, making the themes of justice and redemption and even overtly Christian references more striking. Eric and Shelly’s white cat that miraculously is still surviving a year later is called Gabriel. The literal miracle of the drugs - and people often refer to those addicted to drugs as having “demons” - being forced out of Darla. The final battle takes place at a church, with Myca falling down the center of the bell tower, and Top Dollar impaled on a gargoyle, literally killed by a spirit of vengeance and a part of God’s home, abandoned though it may be.
The bad guys are bad, the good are redeemed, and unlike Game of Thrones, we’re not expected to end up cheering for the incestuous wannabe child murderers. But most of the good are less than perfect, with doubts and even serious failings. Sarah may still be innocent, but she’s already acquired a timeworn cynicism belying her years.
Whatever unevenness the dialog or acting may have, the movie is dripping in style. If you hate the goth aesthetic, you’ll hate this movie, as it’s soaking in it. Most of the costumes would fit in a punk or goth club. The buildings are run down and shabby, delapidated, dark, and gothic, in many ways mirroring the slightly surreal look and feel of Proyas’ Dark City. Robocop may have broken the mold in using Detroit for its future dystopia, but The Crow lives it among the poor and the desperate - no glitz or shining spires. The models used for the overflights of the crow have their proportios subtly off - everyone here is living in something unnatural and hellish, but some like Eric and Albrecht, hadn’t given up hope no matter how awful life became.
Shelly’s ethereal beauty only seen in flashbacks really stands out among this dark background.
The soundtrack, largely orchestral, has a lot of industrial and alternative rock. Standouts include “Burn” by the Cure, “Snakedriver” by Jesus and Mary Chain, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, and even My life With the Thrill Kill Kult. Appropriately enough, MLWtTKK was the band playing onstage at Top Dollar’s club during the shootout, the set brought to a halt by the bodies falling from above.
The action? Well - the fight choreography was excellent, poetic even, and flamboyant, but no-one had ever heard of reloads. Eric makes the most of his nigh-invulnerability, an undead terminator, at least until the end where Myca and Top Dollar, having discovered his weakness, remove that edge. And the weakness is intimately tied to his presence in the world of the living.
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Man, I used to LOVE this movie. Haven't watched it in ages. Might be time to change that.
Great flick!