The Crow

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The Crow is a film adaptation of the James O'Barr comic book series of the same name. It stars the late, great Brandon Lee as Eric Draven, a twenty-something rock musician and happily engaged man on the verge of crossing the threshold of life and death. When a criminal kingpin orders thugs to evict Eric and his fiancée in a hostile territorial overthrow, Shelly is raped and murdered just moments before Eric is thrown through a window to his ultimate demise. Through uncanny and unspoken means, Eric is resurrected via the haunting familiar of the crow with the sole drive to seek vengeance for the death of his love, with extreme prejudice in this gothic neo-noir revenge-slash-love story.

I really wish I had seen this in the theater. I didn't see it for the first time until myself and two friends rented the VHS based purely on a tv trailer and our familiarity with the soundtrack (more on that in a bit)...and for the record- they both said 'it sucked'. I on the other hand...did not agree, at all. I was very much into it, and here's why:

Lee is spectacular in his portrayal of the grieving, rampaging Draven. The tension and looming threat of death for his prey makes the payoff very satisfying. He soaks every scene with deep, emotional shades of despair, desperately seeking closure through merciless recompense. You genuinely feel his pain, and want to see him inevitably rest in peace. It also makes use of one of my favorite story-telling elements, being the use of a younger character to counter, or reflect the struggle of the protagonist in a way that provides our hero with the self-realization to grow, and overcome.

The soundtrack is also one of my absolute all time favorites. It spent a LOT of time in my Sony Discman from 94-96. The Cure, Helmet, Nine Inch Nails, the Violent Femmes, and Stone Temple Pilots. Tough to fail in the early nineties with that line up, and as a huge Joy Division fan, it really doesn't get any better than Nine Inch Nails covering Joy Division's Dead Souls as far as this guy is concerned.

This was also my first exposure to the work of Alex Proyas, one of my future favorite directors I will most certainly be mentioning in future reviews.

I love this movie going twenty-plus years strong and I recommend checking it out if you have any appreciation for anything I just wrote, and I hope you enjoy it.

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