Synopsis
An FBI free-lancer stashes a stolen Las Vegas-crime tape in a high-tech car stolen by someone else.
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Cast
- Tommy Lee JonesQuint
- Linda HamiltonNina
- Robert VaughnEd Ryland
- Richard JaeckelEarl Windom
- Lee VingMarvin Ringer
- Bubba SmithJohnson
- Dan ShorBilly Lyons
- William SandersonTyke Thayden
- Keenan WynnIron John
- Nick CassavetesLuis
Recommendations
- 80
Los Angeles Times
It’s swift and mean--a little empty perhaps, but not enough to distract you from its pleasures: the stark, brilliantly metallic gleam cinematographer Misha Suslov puts on his images, the psycho-electric jabs of the Lalo Schifrin score, the clean thrust of the plot, the furiously lucid action and the canny, almost stylized, minimalist performances of the actors (Jones, Hamilton, Vaughn, Richard Jaeckel, Keenan Wynn, Ving, Smith and the others). The movie may be shallow, but it’s also trim. It has that easy virtue of the old-line Hollywood B film: little visible excess fat. - 70
Washington Post
Buoyed by John ("Halloween") Carpenter's slick writing and Tommy Lee Jones' Texas charm, "Black Moon Rising" is a cut above the usual exploitation fare. This may be like parsing the difference between an exotic dancer and a stripper, but hey, it's a living, okay? - 60
The New York Times
The film sounds pretty silly, and it is, but it's not painful to watch. Harley Cokliss, the director, and John Carpenter, Desmond Nakano and William Gray, who wrote the screenplay, never allow credibility to worry them, or even those of us in the audience. Like a stolen car, it moves pretty fast, if erratically. It has a tendency to put Quint into impossible situations from which he walks away with unexplained ease. - 60
IGN
As is often the case, what makes this film so enjoyable is the cast. - 60
BBC
Tommy Lee Jones wisecracks his way after the Black Moon supercar in this intriguing action film that was to prove highly influential for the later "Die Hard". - 50
TV Guide Magazine
Director Cokliss directs in a workmanlike manner, but his action scenes are unimaginatively handled and lack pizzazz. Luckily, his cast is almost strong enough to make up for it. - 50
Chicago Reader
Cokliss's direction strains for a stylishness it doesn't achieve, yet his fundamentally straightforward style brings out the abstract design of the plot. Is this the first cubist thriller? - 50
Time Out
It all gets off to a cracking start, only to dwindle very rapidly into thin and predictable variations on the formulaic ploys. And Vaughn gives his usual performance of perfect menace, which suggests that he should be about to engage in world domination, not just nicking motors.
