Eraser (1996)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Eraser is a top notch Schwarzenegger vehicle, and in a year where the only other Arnie entry was the mind numbing Jingle All The Way, it supplies 1996 with that jolt of action from our favourite Austrian juggernaut. Here he's John Kruger, a US Marshal who specializes in an obscure wing of the witness protection program that literally wipes people's memories clean before replacement. The technology is naturally hoarded over by big old corporations which as we know aren't to be trusted in these type of films. During a routine mission to help beautiful client Vanessa Williams, Kruger begins to suspect his own colleagues of some shady shit involving the sale of high grade weapons, and before he knows it he in the crosshairs and on the run with Vanessa tagging along. It's all smarmy James Caan's fault really, who plays his devilish, treacherous superior officer at the WitSec agency, a classic case of ambition gone rogue, his villainous cackle trademark of someone you just shouldn't trust, even before his true colours are bared. The action is fast, furious and rooted in 90's sensibilities, with all manner of attack helicopter chases, massive artillery fired off at a whim and the the near SciFi concept frequently smothered by the shock and awe campaign of each set piece, which is fine in an Arnie flick really, I mean they can't all be Terminators and Total Recalls. There's a neat rogues gallery of character actors filling in the wings in addition to the big guy, Williams and Caan, including Olek Krupa, Patrick Kilpatrick, James Cromwell, Danny Nucci, Robert Pastorelli, Joe Viterelli, Mark Rolston, John Slattery, Roma Maffia, Tony Longo, Melora Walters, Camryn Mannheim, Skip Sudduth and Nick Chinlund as Caan's unwitting henchman. There's also a delightful cameo from James Coburn as the WitSet CEO, doing the same pleasant 'sort of a villain, but also sort of not' shtick he did in Payback. One of Arnie's more low key efforts, but still more than serviceable and a slam bang damn great time at the action races.

US Marshal John Kruger (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is an expert at erasing identities at WITSEC. Chief Beller (James Coburn) assigns Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams) to him. She's a whistle-blower at defense contractor Cyrez Corporation. After getting the evidence for the government, she is resistant to WITSEC and killers come after her with high-tech weapons. Fellow Marshal Robert DeGuerin (James Caan) tells Kruger that someone is killing witnesses.It's a nice action thriller. There are lots of gun action. The body count is pretty good. Arnold gets to hang out of a plane and battle some crocodiles. It probably needs a few more wisecracks to be as fun as some of Arnold's best. The one-liners aren't quite as good. I like it but people may be tired of his big action movies by that point.

This is a very good movie if you know anything about the corruption that exists in the Military Industrial Complex__the companies that the fake government gives blank checks to in order to receive advanced weapon systems to kill camel jockeys! Did anybody associate the scene with James Caan and AS and the 727 and the 911 attack on the WTCs by Boeing jets? Why didn't anybody try and shoot the jets down? Too bad Arnold wasn't flying around lower Manhattan in a Cessna or Lear Jet on September 11. I'm sure Arnold would have crashed his jet into the big Boeings to stop the attack. Oh, that is the Hollywood version. Anyway, Erasure is not factual because the MIC can DOA anybody, anywhere, for any reason, and no reason at all and this is why the DOD should be destroyed or reduced in size.

So what do we have here ? A plot with the action thriller movie constituents and condiments : Brave hero. Beautiful heroine. Nice sidekick. Bad guy from the supposedly good guys. Chase the good guys. Try to kill them. Frame the lead. Plus a new sophisticated gun, some good action sequences, one every 7 minutes, added to a dialogue consisting of successive macho and funny one-liners like : "If you drop your gun now, I promise I won't kill you.", "You're luggage!", "Mr. Sixty Minutes, tell me something I don't know.", "You're late! / Traffic.", "Where is this? / Earth. Welcome.", "They caught a train.", and my favorite since the first viewing long time ago : "You've just been erased." Schwarzenegger is so charismatic and in shape, being shot in mostly low angles to look like a *true* tree trunk. See how he walks perfectly confident, wears a long coat as if he's a dusty sheriff, fights like a live wire, and humorously negotiates a kid "50 Bucks ?!" Vanessa Williams never looked better, shining every scene she's in. She didn't have to get naked or vulgar to be sexy, because with modest outfit and by a look from her incomparable blue eyes, she instantly is. And I love when she had to move her lips to curse by the F word without uttering it.. so delicate ! Robert Pastorelli made what could be his best role. Alan Silvestri music explodes instead of the image sometimes. And some of the CGI impress. It even had a promoting music video, "Where Do We Go From Here", with charming performance by Vanessa Williams, and fervent arrangement; being part of the MTV legacy which, for its quality, won't fall into utter oblivion. So this is fast-paced, action packed, colorfully dazzling fare, that hit $234,400,000 gross, and an academy award nomination for best sound effects editing. Though, many accusations may find a way to harm it. Vanessa Williams doesn't have a real character, she's more like a doll whose being chased, and that's it. We don't know a thing about Schwarzenegger's character either. And, most importantly, there is no love story to develop between them, or even a friendship with distinct features. Look at a scene like the one in which he forced her to burn her ID cards in the hearth's fire, the script didn't utilize the moment to build any kind of emotional convergence between the 2 characters, so nothing was warm there but the hearth's fire ! However, million can defend by saying that this is a straight action, where things like character development, or characterization in the first place, are considered bore, nonsense, or blasphemy ! How a man jumps off a plane, to chase his parachute, and catches it, then shoots the plane's windshield, as if he's facing a car ?!! But, again, it's a fantastic realm, exclusively made to entertain you, show you an invincible hero, give you a lovely dream, to compensate your foibles, feel victory and have a model, whatever.. The lead doesn't have a solution at last, but murdering all the baddies, since the law is so weak to condemn them. It's another way to gift you with the salvation. An extremely violent, if not insane, but it's the Dirty Harry effect, where justice must be bloody !However, other accusations can harm the movie, with no defense from my side. While being ideal in places, the CGI is exposed in others. The crocodiles, the exploded door of Williams's flat, the falling container, and hitting Arnie by the plane; are enough examples. And it always provokes me to "see" the bullets while the moment of the bulletproof glass ! The face of Arnie's double is so obvious in couple of shots (one is at the parachute sequence). Arnie's nail injury disappears within a scene. No way that Arnie couldn't glimpse implanting Williams's picture in the murdered woman's clothes. The Baltimore docks' men are suddenly heroes, all-set to sacrifice their lives for their country (they seemed rather angry for not having a commission !). Dismembering one of the bad guys' shoulder was awful, and felt inserted just to get the R rating, as long as there is no sex scene ! The no love, friendship, or character in the mix did leave the movie a bit empty. And James Caan can't be Schwarzenegger's antagonist. Yes, he's a tough guy, but also old, shorty, and un-scary compared to Arnie ! When Arnie comes disguised as a balloon delivery man to Williams's house, with "Let's Party!" printed on his jacket; it's a reference to Commando (1985) in which he says that line. Actually, Eraser is nothing but a party. It mixes the 1970s tough cop actions, and political thrillers, with the 1990s Terminator's sci-fi, and big and loud blockbusters, through the formula of "a-man-and-a-woman-on-the-run", which was in fashion since the 1960's end, and being made in numerous movies at the time; such as The Pelican Brief (1993), I Love Trouble (1994), Fair Game (1995), and The Long Good Night Kiss (1996), all to end up as average crap, though ready to entertainingly fill any 2 spare hours in your life. I know it did that for me, many times too ! Finally, it's a shame that Chuck Russell, director of The Mask (1994), and Eraser (1996), isn't working in Hollywood movies anymore. Unlike the way it goes in Eraser, something erased his future, and left him unprotected !