'Strange Days'

It's amazing that Kathryn Bigelow was responsible for before she hit her grand slam.

He biggest claim to fame before The Hurt Locker was Strange Days, which probably didn't do so hot in the box office because it's the worst possible title for a film. It's almost insulting.

Anyway, Strange Days is only significant because it caught a certain amount of cult mojo, which can go a long way these days, with the Internet and all.

But Bigelow had been directing since 1982 and she's already 59 years old. Not a spring chicken. About six bombs until she caught lightning (and Jeremy Renner) in a bottle with The Hurt Locker and scored big.

Strange Days, despite the title, isn't awful. Ralph Fiennes is excellent just about everything he does. Tom Sizemore is great, however, I doubt he was actually acting; seems to have been portraying himself on a certain level.

The story is deep and multi-faceted. It shocks you quickly into this fictional world where law and order has become a thing of the past in the United States. In fact, it's so electrfying, this world, that you start to wonder what happened for it all to get that awful. If nothing else, it almost overshadows the entire film.

A plot twist that I didn't see coming nor did I care about what the apparent romance between Fiennes' Lenny and Angela Bassett's Mace. I didn't really feel there was that attraction. Just kind of a pair of characters that care about each other because they have a conscience. Not because they were in love with each other.