Once again, a film that the majority seems to hate, but I enjoyed. I got the DVD of this film for my birthday. On the cover was a review from the Chicago Sun-Times, calling it 'a stylish and consistently engaging thriller'. I assume that this review was from Roger Ebert as he writes for the Sun-Times. If it was written by him, then I'm glad that for once there's a movie both he and I agree on. There's a couple of other films which I like that he gives good reviews too as well, but there are others I like which he just seems to find fault with. I'm glad that this was not one of them. True, it does have some minor faults, but overall it is a great film. I had heard about this flick about two years ago when I read about it in a sci-fi movies book. I admit I was attracted by the notion of a futuristic supercar. In hindsight though, the car (the Black Moon of the title) looks rather silly, but the film itself is rather good.

SPOILER WARNINGS: Tommy Lee Jones (before he was REALLY famous) plays Sam Quint. an ex-thief who does odd jobs for the government. His current assignment is to get a computer tape containing the tax records of a crooked Las Vegas corporation which is being investigated by the government. He gets the tape but finds himself being pursued by the company's head of security, a ne'er-do-well named Marvin Ringer, who happens to be an old rival of his. Meanwhile, a trio of scientists, lead by ex-NASA tech Richard Jaeckal, is travelling to LA with their invention, the Black Moon, in tow to show off to a group of investors. Quint hides the tape in the rear of the car, hoping to retrieve it later. But shortly after the car reaches LA, it is stolen by a car theft ring working for ruthless tycoon Ryland. Quint is given three days by the Feds to recover the tape. He intends to break into Ryland's skyscraper fortress to get both the car and the tape back. To do this, he teams up with frustrated thief Nina, and the two surviving scientists (the third gets run over by Ryland's right hand man). But Ringer is still in hot pursuit and when he catches up with him at one point, Quint gets beaten within an inch of his life. But he keeps on going. Basically, he saves the day, gets the girl and beats the bad guys.

The performances are very good in this picture. Tommy Lee Jones is great as lovable rogue Quint as are Linda Hamilton as Nina and Lee Ving (CLUE) as the ruthless Ringer. Robert Vaughn is rather two-dimensional as Ryland, but that's probably because Ryland is a rather thin character. One of my favourite actors, Nick Cassavetes, appears as Ryland's number two, a lanky thug named Luis, and he is very menacing, but doesn't have much to do. POLICE ACADEMY's Bubba Smith is surprisingly good in a straight role as gigantic FBI agent Johnson ('Don't f**k with the government' he warns Quint!). The action is also brilliant and very realistic too. After Quint gets his butt kicked by Ringer and his goons, he doesn't recover instantly like other action heroes would. He is still carrying the bruises from that particular beating at the end of the film. As said before, the Black Moon is rather stupid looking, but it proves itself in a car chase around LA (which comes rather early in the film). I would strongly recommend a viewing of this film.

Tommy Lee Jones plays Quint, a professional thief hired by the government to acquire a tape that will incriminate a major corporation. While he is taking it on the lam, he quickly stashes the tape inside an experimental super-car (the "Black Moon" of the title), which is then stolen by another professional thief, Nina (Linda Hamilton) and her precision team. When the two thieves meet, sparks fly, but Quint will be in big trouble if he doesn't get that tape back. So he teams up with two of the cars' designers to take on Ninas' big bad evil boss Ed Ryland (Robert Vaughn).

The first screenplay ever sold by beloved genre filmmaker John Carpenter, it spent years in development before finally becoming a reality, released by New World in 1986. It's exactly what one would hope it would be: engaging, pedal-to-the-metal nonsense. It's well-paced, it's sexy, it's violent, the car itself is a marvel to behold, and there's some real high-tech finesse displayed by "heroes" and villains alike. It also has a heart, evident in scenes with the great Keenan Wynn (in his final feature film appearance) and Jones.

The real interest here lies in this eclectic cast. We have a typically charismatic, cool-as-can-be Jones (who apparently did most of his own stunts and came up with a lot of Quints' wisecracks) in the lead, an appealing Hamilton as his love interest, football player turned "Police Academy" regular Bubba Smith as a federal agent, Richard Jaeckel, Dan Shor, and William Sanderson as the Black Moons' creators, punk rocker & occasional actor Lee Ving as Jones' persistent nemesis, and Nick Cassavetes as a henchman. Vaughn is smooth and amusingly slimy in the kind of white-collar bad guy he could play in his sleep. Al White, one of the jive talking dudes from "Airplane!", has a bit as a maintenance man.

"Black Moon Rising" is overall a fairly routine, somewhat futuristic B action picture, but is still quite agreeable on that level.

Seven out of 10.