Basically saved by two actors way better than the material
Denzel Washington was still looking for leading man success in 1991 after his Oscar win for “Glory” and “Heart Condition”, a buddy comedy he did with Bob Hoskins, sure as hell didn’t help. His next was “Ricochet”, a box office failure that at least had better ingredients- being produced by action-maestro Joel Silver and backed by a villainously seething John Lithgow, the film is over the top and absurd, but hard to dismiss.
Washington would also be the first of several black actors who would finally get to take the mantle of action hero in the 90s, which in past decades was predominantly if not totally white. He plays patrolman Nick Styles, who we first see capturing a dangerous hitman by first stripping down to his underwear, and then subduing the suspect by shooting him with a gun stashed in his jock strap. It’s a scene of sexiness you imagine few cops would have the confidence to pull off.
The shoot turns the pre-law Styles into a rock star and 7 years later, he is a happily married assistant prosecutor looking to do great things for his community at large. Do we believe that Styles would still be friends with the local drug dealer (Ice T)? No. Do we believe that someone like Styles would issue a warning to him all on his own? Also no. But Washington’s grandstanding and unshakeable resolve win hearts and minds.
That brings me to Earl Blake (Lithgow), the psycho hitman that Styles helped put away all those years ago. He’s only stewed and gotten more psychotic in prison, not to mention this is the only prison in America that allows the prisoners to strap books to themselves as armor and compete in sword fights. This has won Blake control of the Aryan brotherhood. He’s not racist, he just needs their help for escape and revenge.
Directed by “Highlander’s” Russell Mulcahy, the film is just as violent as that picture if not more, with people taking shotgun blasts and power saws to the chest among several other bloody things. And if that gets you queasy, the broad strokes of Blake’s revenge, slowly discrediting, drugging, and driving Styles to the brink of madness, is sordid enough to make this the kind of film you want to shower off afterwards.
But if you like your cat and mouse thrills more sullied than usual then you could do worse than seeing Washington and Lithgow go head to head, the former slowly losing his grip on all clear-thinking thought as the film progresses and the latter expertly playing the flat-affect psychopath movies could always use more of, so seethingly vicious and over the top even his smile is enough to make your skin crawl.
“Ricochet” is movie junk food, in that there’s not a lot that’s redeeming about the story being told, but it works as a piece of batshit crazy entertainment- the ending particularly, which involves blowing up a building and jumping down a laundry shoot, is both hilariously silly and incredibly heart pounding. The movie works something like that, and thanks to two up and coming performers who are far better than the material, the film lucks out more than it ever could have hoped for.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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