Fear City

Year:	1984
Country:	USA
Language:	English
Genre:	Crime, Drama, Mystery
IMDB:	IMDB Page
Rating:	7.0 Rate
Collection:	Seen It Wishlist
Community:	1 Has Seen, 1 Wishlist


Director	Abel Ferrara
Selected Cast	Tom Berenger
	Melanie Griffith
	Billy Dee Williams
	Jack Scalia

On DVD & Blu-ray World

DVD

Fear City - Atlantic - Sweden (2004)

Comments and Reviews


Magic Marmalade 24th Jan 2025		Rated 7/10 Neon-Noir. This neon-drenched, quasi-serial killer, semi-skin-flick feels like a bleed over from the seventies, as in both look and feel, if you didn't know the date of release, you'd swear it was a seventies movie. Although, more accurately, this feels like a 30s to 50's film-noir packed inside the clothes of the seventies, an presented in the eighties. (The only thing that gave it away is a scene in the street with a telephone box, where a cinema in the background is showing: Blue Thunder, An Officer And a Gentleman, and Flashdance!) It reeks of a kind of pulp noir novel that might have been bought back in the day from a cigarette stand: Lonesome ex-boxer, haunted by his last fight, in which he killed his opponent, now runs an agency for strip club dancers, who suddenly start getting serially attacked in the street by pre-Se7en style nut job, and the boxer's mob connections, as well as the hard-bitten, no-nonsense (and slightly shady) Detective who is always getting his face are all over him to try and bring the nutter to book. It's great as just that... A piece of pulpy schlock, but there are a couple of gripes for me: Firstly, it seems there is precisely zero detective work going on in the entire movie regarding catching this guy, which, although the movie's centre is about the effect on the people it's happening to, rather than who is doing it, the "serial killer" is essentially a tacked on plot device, and is only wrapped up conveniently at the end. Then there is the odd choice of having the serial killer be a puritanical Martial arts obsessive, which in real world situations seems a little bit whacky, and goofy... but I put this down to the attempt to make the movie appeal to the popularity of martial arts movies of the time. And finally, it's the fact that the only people who seem to be in the titular "fear" are the characters in the movie, as opposed to laying a palpable blanket of fear over an entire city,in the manner of, say: Summer of Sam, or Zodiac killers... so a bit of misnomer. But otherwise pretty groovy, with a strong performance by Tom Berenger, and plenty of scenes of a nude Melanie Griffith (See, I knew that'd get your attention! :) .... and so did the film-makers, I suspect.) 2 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?



jaimeeduardo 17th Nov 2020

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Tags: Neo Noir

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