THE CROW (1994)

DIRECTED BY Alex Proyas

SCREENPLAY BY David J Schow & John Shirley based on the graphic novel "The Crow" by James O' Barr

STARRING - Brandon Lee as Eric Draven/The Crow, Rochelle Davies as Sarah,  Ernie Hudson as Sergeant Albrecht,  Michael Wincott as Top Dollar,  Bai Ling as Myca,  Sofia Shinas as Shelly Webster,  Anna Levine as Darla,  David Patrick Kelly as T-Bird,  Angel David as Skank,  Laurence Mason as Tin Tin,  Michael Massee as Funboy,  Tony Todd as Grange,  Jon Polito as Gideon,  Bill Raymond as Mickey,  Marco Rodriguez as Detective Torres.

PLOT - One year ago on the night before Halloween - Devil's Night, a young rock musician Eric Draven and his girlfriend Shelly where brutally murdered in thier home by a gang of vicious thugs.

One year later on the anniversary of the killings those self same thugs are turning up dead. One by one they are being killed by a shadowy vigilante, a vigilante who happens to be the unquiet spirit of Eric Draven.

Eric is back from beyond the grave and he's looking for vengeance. Woe betide ANYONE who stands in his way...

PERFORMANCES - Sadly there's just no way I can discuss this film without first talking about the death of it's star Brandon Lee who died in a shooting accident on-set during the making of this film.

Brandon Lee was the son of Bruce Lee and up to this point his career had always been overshadowed by his more famous father. Brandon Lee had appeared in several straight to video action movies in the late 80's/early 90's, The Crow was to be his breakout role. The film that was to make him a household name, and indeed it did. Unfortunately this was to be posthumously.

Everyone pretty much knows what happened to Brandon Lee but for the sake of clarity I'll just reiterate. Basically, whilst filming a scene, a prop gun which was supposed to fire blanks turned out to be live, Lee was shot and died a few hours later in hospital, he was aged just twenty eight years old.

For a while it looked like this movie was going to be ditched, the crew and surviving cast members where all obviously devastated by what happened (particularly Michael Massee, the actor playing Funboy, who fired the fatal shot. Understandably he never ever recovered from the incident and his mental health suffered for decades afterwards until his own death in 2016). However, feeling that they owed Lee a huge debt the crew elected to continue filming and finish the film in his memory.

Chunks of the film where rewritten to accommodate Lee's absence, scenes where reshot using body doubles and in some segments Lee's face was superimposed over a double via early CGI technology. The practice of "resurrecting" dead actors via computer technology is now fairly common (albeit still somewhat controversial), back then in the mid 90's it was practically unheard of. So does this fractious approach to finishing the movie out of necessity harm the film or Lee's final performance ?

I'd say not.

Obviously Lee's performance is compromised slightly (how could it not be ?), there ARE parts of the film where you can "see the joins" as it where, for instance there's lots of moments where we see Lee/Eric shot from the back and several scenes where his face is totally obscured which where clearly shot with body doubles, unfortunately this was unavoidable, but on the whole the heart and soul of Lee's performance (which is what really matters) remains intact.

Lee puts a LOT of heart and soul into his performance as Eric/The Crow. Eric is essentially an undead "action hero" but unlike other action heroes of the time Eric Draven is no one liner spitting smart arse, ever ready with an appalling quip as he violently dispatches the bad guys into the hereafter. No, Eric is just a normal guy who's avenging a tragedy.  We see prior to his death and resurrection that he was quite a gentle soul, it's only circumstance that has led him to where he is now.

In many places Eric actually seems quite self deprecating which doesn't mean he isn't also a total badass when he puts his mind to it. Eric kicks arse with the best of them, he's just a bit more thoughtful is all.

Brandon Lee may not have been as good a martial artist as his dad (although he was still no slouch either) but from what we see here he was definitely a way better actor. I can't imagine Lee Senior putting over as much pathos (if he where to have played this role at a similar age) to what Lee junior gives us here. I think had he have lived Brandon Lee would have become just as iconic as Bruce Lee (arguably in his own tragic way he has), We were robbed...but not as much as Lee and his family was. May he rest in peace.

As part of the necessary rewrites other characters in the film where given slightly more prominence than they had in the original intended version. One such character is Sarah (Rochelle Davis) the young street kid who Eric and Shelley befriended before they died. Davis gets some nice scenes with Lee and gets to do some voice over narration that muses on the film's themes of life, death and grief. These voice over segments where largely rewritten to give the film a more hopeful ending (the original was apparently darker and more cynical), this was felt to be more fitting in light of what happened to Lee. The end monologue is beautiful, I definitely think they went with the right choice.

Ernie Hudson playing Albrecht - the street cop who befriends Eric- also gets some lovely and insightful scenes with Lee. The two have good chemistry together and manage to convey a convincing (and quite touching) friendship.

Michael Wincott plays Top Dollar - the main villain of the piece. Top Dollar is the local gang boss with a finger in all the pies. 

Wincott has what is probably the most gravelly sounding voice I think I've ever heard, honestly this man sounds like he's been gargling with concrete for ten years every time he opens his mouth. He's also got the most 90's looking hair going. He looks like he's stepped straight out of one of the early 90's grunge rock bands that populate this movie's soundtrack. He's VERY of his time that's for sure. 

As a villain he doesn't have a lot of depth. He's just a horrible bastard really, but that doesn't matter seeing as we've got quite a three dimensional hero we don't really need to know why Top Dollar is the way he is. He's definitely got a sleazy side to him - he appears to be banging his half sister Myca (Bai Lin) and also seems to have a sexualy sadistic streak to him as well. Basically he's a villain you love to hate, so Job done. Slightly dated cheesiness aside Wincott is good in the role and he does get some darkly funny lines in places too.

We also get an early appearance from the recently passed Tony Todd playing Top Dollar's right hand man Grange. This was just after Todd was cast as The Candyman in Clive Barker's horror classic, but he was still yet to become the longstanding member of horror royalty that he became in later years. He doesn't get a lot to do here other than standard villainous henchman stuff but he's still good and it's always nice to see Tony Todd in anything. He's another actor that's going to be missed that's for sure. Once again rest in peace.

SFX - As I mentioned above it was necessary to use CGI effects to paste over the cracks when they where sadly unable to use Lee. Unfortunately these parts haven't aged well. If you think digitally resurrected actors look "uncanny valley" these days then you haven't seen anything yet. Fortunately though these moments are quite brief (most of Lee's scenes had already been filmed at the time of his death) and aren't enough to detract from the film. It is what it is unfortunately.

VIOLENCE - As you'd expect given the storyline The Crow IS a violent movie but it's never particularly explicit or gory, the violence is there and you DO see it's consequences but it's never lingered upon for long. There's lots of gun battles - which may or may not make you feel a bit uneasy considering what fate had in store for Lee (don't worry - the scene he died filming ISN'T present).

Eric slashes, shoots, blows up, stabs and beats hordes of lowlifes all in classic action movie style (some of the gunfights have a very John Woo-esque feel to them).

Probably the most explicit scene is when Eric hurls Top Dollar off the roof of a cathedral at the film's climax. Top Dollar is impaled upon a stone gargoyle and a fountain of his blood pours out of the gargoyle's mouth. It's like something off the cover of a heavy metal album. It's great.

RATING - I like this film, but I do have a bit of a strange relationship with it.

I first saw it when it was on it's original theatrical release back in 94. I went to the now long gone ABC cinema in Mansfield with my then girlfriend to watch it. I enjoyed it (we both did), obviously I knew about what had happened to Brandon Lee but at the time it didn't particularly faze me, it was just something bad that had happened to a stranger. Twenty year old me enjoyed The Crow purely on the level of it being a slightly gothic action revenge movie - a kind of more adult and grimy version of Batman, the deeper meanings of the movie where lost on me.

I saw it again a few times on VHS a few years later round at various friends houses. By that point I'd grown a bit tired of it I think. The Crow by the late 90's had become so iconic that it didn't seem that special anymore (a slew of inferior sequels didn't help matters much either). At that point in my life I was spending my last few months at University and on weekends was going to an alternative nightclub that was operating in Stoke-On-Trent where I was based. The amount of cut priced, spotty Brandon Lee wannabe impersonators in that bar was ridiculous. All of them trying in vain to emulate thier hero in a desperate attempt to woo some gullible teenage goth girl and get laid that night. It all made it seem a bit embarrassing, so I generally stayed away from watching the film. I didn't see it again for over twenty years.

Fast forward a few decades and I'm looking through the second hand DVD section at Poundland in Norwich. I spy a copy of The Crow (ghoulishly proclaiming that it features Brandon Lee's LAST EVER INTERVIEW as a special feature). Feeling nostalgic I spend my quid and take it home. I enjoyed it again...a lot. Obviously by now I had an older and (slightly) wiser head on my shoulders, so the film's deeper themes didn't go over my head so much. I started to appreciate it as more than just an action/horror hybrid.

I watched The Crow again a few nights ago for the purposes of this review and MY GOD didn't it's themes of death hit differently to me this time round. 2024 has been a weird year for me - I lost both my sister-in-law and one of my good friends within months of each other. I also turned fifty. Fifty is a weird sort of age - you're not yet (technically) old but neither are you a spring chicken either. It's an age where you start to realise just how quickly time is passing and inevitably, like it or not, you do start to ponder your own mortality.

Watching The Crow in this headspace caused the film to affect me in a way it's never done before. It moved me in a way it previously hadn't. That end monologue with all its wistful sadness and it's sense of hope amidst the pain of loss stayed with me for days afterwards.

I'm not trying to make the claim that this film is great art because it's not (no film I review on this site is) but for the same film to effect me in such drastically different ways throughout various points of my life must mean something. If only as an object lesson in how film has a unique way of speaking to it's audience. 

As it stands The Crow is a film that is flawed by unfortunate necessity, but also one which serves as a fitting tribute to the talented young man who sadly died to bring it to us. The fact that it also resonates on an emotional level to those who wish (or need) it to is just the icing on the cake.

5 vengeful undead out of 5. If you've not seen it for a few decades give it another go and see how it hits you this time round.

ART - 

Below, art from James O'Barr's original graphic novel...