At the site of a lavish celebratory party, thrown by a Japanese company wanting to celebrate their purchase of a US company, the mood turns decidedly unhappy when someone turns up dead on the boardroom table. The fact that it’s a young woman, who is most assuredly not Japanese, is probably not a good sign.

Detective Webster Smith (Wesley Snipes) is called in to investigate, and quickly teamed up with Captain John Connor (Sean Connery). This partner arrangement, where a younger. more inexperienced investigator, would be paired with a wiser, more seasoned man, is quite common for the Japanese. Apparently.

Unfortunately, Webb isn’t too happy about either his new partner or the fact that the Japanese don’t want their party to be disturbed. But life is about to get a lot more interesting for him.

Connor quickly lets Webb know that the Japanese are well aware of who was on call that night, and that they also are very familiar with the way things work in America. In Japan, criminals can expect to get caught, but in American, the likelihood that a criminal will get caught is much lower, and so they tend to think that the police are stupid. As such, it’s going to be an uphill battle.

The next few hours are crucial in any investigation, but even more so in this one.

Interestingly, because Connor plays golf with the head of the company, he does manage to get a copy of the original video disc that recorded security on that floor (it appears to have been replaced), and his friend Jingo (Tia Carrere) spends all night determining that this “original” has actually been doctored. Pretty amazing, really, considering that they only had a couple of hours to do the work.

It’s also a good thing that they think the police in America are stupid, because it meant that they were careless – they left traces for Jingo to find, and that means that there are clues. While she looks for those, Connor and Webb look for Eddie (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), who considers himself something of a playboy, and who incidentally was dating the dead girl.

Unfortunately, when Eddie’s house is raided, he ends up dead in an explosion, and that puts a bit of a damper on the investigation, until Jango turns up a little more evidence in the video department, which leads straight to the door of a corrupt politician. It turns out that he didn’t kill the girl, but he’s being framed for it, and that leads back to the boardroom.

In the end, someone takes a fall, but you can never be quite sure if it’s the actual person who did the deed or not.

All-in-all, not exactly a bad movie, but probably a bit too long.

Rated R for drug use, language, nudity and violence.

Tagged with...
Actor: Alexandra Powers, Actor: Amy Hill, Actor: Carl A. McGee, Actor: Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Actor: Cecil Brown, Actor: Clarence Page, Actor: Clyde Kusatsu, Actor: Dan Butler, Actor: Daniel von Bargen, Actor: Dennis Ota, Actor: Eleanor Clift, Actor: Fumio Demura, Actor: Gunnar Peterson, Actor: Harvey Keitel, Actor: J. Max Kirishima, Actor: James Oliver Bullock, Actor: Jeff Imada, Actor: Jessica Tuck, Actor: Joey Miyashima, Actor: John Koyama, Actor: Keith Leon Williams, Actor: Kenji, Actor: Kevin Anderson, Actor: Larry O. Williams Jr., Actor: Lauren Robinson, Actor: Leo Lee, Actor: Mako, Actor: Masa Watanabe, Actor: Max Grodénchik, Actor: Meagen Fay, Actor: Michael Chapman, Actor: Michael Kinsley, Actor: Michael Leopard, Actor: Michele Ruiz, Actor: Minnie Summers Lindsey, Actor: Nelson Mashita, Actor: Pat Choate, Actor: Patricia Ayame Thomson, Actor: Paul Fujimoto, Actor: Peter Crombie, Actor: Quincy Adams Jr., Actor: Ray Wise, Actor: Raymond Kitamura, Actor: Rita Weibel, Actor: Sam Lloyd, Actor: Scot Anthony Robinson, Actor: Sean Connery, Actor: Seiichi Tanaka, Actor: Shelley Michelle, Actor: Stan Egi, Actor: Stan Shaw, Actor: Steve Buscemi, Actor: Steven C. Clemons, Actor: Susan Iida, Actor: Tadashi Yamashita, Actor: Tak Kubota, Actor: Tamara Tunie, Actor: Tatjana Patitz, Actor: Tia Carrere, Actor: Tom Dahlgren, Actor: Tony Ganios, Actor: Toshirô Obata, Actor: Tylyn John, Actor: Wesley Snipes, Director: Philip Kaufman, Rated: R, Year: 1993