Stealth Entertainment
The Crow
By Scott Lumley
June 4, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.
Hopefully, we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.
The Crow (1994)
I remember way back when I applied to be a writer on this site, we had to submit an application wherein we told a little bit about ourselves. Mine included the usual biographic blather, but the one thing that stood out to David was my simple statement that I could recite the Crow's script from memory. You have to be a serious film fan (or wacko...) to make a statement like that. And so this column was born.
The Crow stars Brandon Lee as Eric Draven, Ernie Hudson of Ghostbusters fame as Sergeant Albrecht, Michael Wincott as top thug Top Dollar, Bai Ling as Top's Sister/Lover (Ew!) Myca, Anna Levine as street kid Darla and David Patrick Kelly as T-Bird, the leader of the gang of scumbags that initiates the events in the movie.
The movie's plot is simple. Innocent people are brutally murdered. One of them is so angered by what happened to them that even death cannot hold him and he comes back as an unstoppable, un-killable agent of vengeance. His wrath is swift and righteous, but other bad guys determine the source of his power and try to steal it. It doesn't end all that well for anyone not on Draven's side.
The Crow has and always will hold a special place in my heart. This is a film that didn't exactly open in a monstrous way, but did take the #1 spot that week with an $11 million opening. That's a number that would be considered an abject failure today. And it did this in a way that was entirely respectful and practically reverent to the lead actor in the film, Brandon Lee.
This was pretty important, because as most people know, Lee was killed during production of the film in a firearms accident. And the producers of the film were stuck with the horrible task of trying to salvage a production with their lead actor gone.
It wasn't just salvaged, it was incredible. I had never seen anything like the Crow when it came out, and 17 years later it still holds up as a great film. It's stylish, well done and while it's hardly a masterpiece of great literature, the script feels very real. T-Bird and his crew are beyond scuzzy in this film, and when Erik comes a calling you're given the rare treat of cheering for the undead creature looking for blood. It's a twist on a horror film that was spun long before all the Vampire films and books that have been produced lately.
Of all the actors, Brandon really stood out as Draven. He wasn't as polished as some of the other performers, but he completely immersed himself into the role of vengeful wraith like few people ever could. The director of the film noted in an interview before Lee's death that he had to admonish Lee for taking risks he shouldn't have taken as he was trying to get a feel for his character. At one point he apparently immersed himself into a tub of ice just so he could understand how it felt to claw his way up from the cold earth. When he was onscreen, he was raw and angry, and his performance took this film and turned it away from what could have been just another kung fu film into a story about grief and vengeance.
The rest of the cast did their best to support Lee or get out of his way, and to their credit they do just that. Ernie Hudson has a few conversations with Lee that would sound ridiculous in just about any other format, but in this film they really, really work.
The producers of the Crow handled the death of Lee as carefully as they could. Lee had not finished filming all his scenes yet so they used digital effects to superimpose his face onto body doubles and finished off the action sequences. Careful editing protected the rest of his work, and what normally would have been a large insurance check became a successful film that generated an astounding cult following.
Since the Crow was released there have been a number of sequels and even a TV series that have followed. They have all been universally horrible. Nothing has even come close to catching the magic that was initially created. Lately there has been talk of remaking the Crow to "reboot" the franchise, a thought that makes me shudder. The Crow doesn't need to be remade. We don't need another Erik Draven. We already had one, and he was perfect.
If Hollywood does decide to reboot the series, fine. There's little I can do to stop that. I just hope they realize what made the first film special, and that it may not be possible to replicate. I'll be the first in line for a new Crow film, provided they can give it the respect, script and production it deserves. It certainly hasn't gotten that lately.
The Crow is available on DVD just about everywhere, and it usually doesn't cost very much. If it's not in your own personal collection, I only have one question for you.
Why?