Black Moon Rising
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''Black Moon Rising'' is a 1986
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
action thriller film Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life ...
directed by Harley Cokliss, written by
John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. Although he worked in various film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. He ...
, and starring
Tommy Lee Jones Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film '' The ...
,
Linda Hamilton Linda Carroll Hamilton (born September 26, 1956) is an American actress. She played Sarah Connor in the '' Terminator'' film series and Catherine Chandler in the television series ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1987–1990), for which she was nomina ...
,
Robert Vaughn Robert Francis Vaughn (November 22, 1932 – November 11, 2016) was an American actor noted for his stage, film and television work. His television roles include the spy Napoleon Solo in the 1960s series '' The Man from U.N.C.L.E.''; th ...
, Keenan Wynn, and
Richard Jaeckel Richard Hanley Jaeckel (October 10, 1926 – June 14, 1997) was an American actor of film and television. Jaeckel became a well-known character actor in his career, which spanned six decades. He received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominatio ...
. The plot revolves around the theft of a prototype vehicle called the Black Moon.


Plot

Sam Quint (
Tommy Lee Jones Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film '' The ...
) is a former thief hired by the FBI to steal a computer disk which contains incriminating evidence against The Lucky Dollar Corporation of Las Vegas. After stealing the disk, Quint is pursued by Marvin Ringer (
Lee Ving Lee James Jude Capallero (born April 10, 1950), also known as Lee Ving, is an American guitarist, singer and actor. Ving is the frontman of the Los Angeles-based hardcore punk band Fear. As an actor, Ving played topless club owner Johnny C. ...
), another former thief and acquaintance who works for the company. At the same time, a prototype vehicle called the Black Moon, which can reach speeds of and runs on tap water, is being tested in the desert by Earl Windom (
Richard Jaeckel Richard Hanley Jaeckel (October 10, 1926 – June 14, 1997) was an American actor of film and television. Jaeckel became a well-known character actor in his career, which spanned six decades. He received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominatio ...
). Quint and Windom later cross paths at a gas station, where Quint hides the disk in the back bumper of the Black Moon. Windom is hauling the Black Moon to Los Angeles, and Quint, still being pursued by Ringer and his men, follows Windom and his team there. In L.A., Quint meets with FBI agent Johnson (
Bubba Smith Charles Aaron Smith (February 28, 1945 – August 3, 2011), commonly known as Bubba Smith, was an American football defensive end and actor. He first came into prominence at Michigan State University, where he twice earned All-American hon ...
) and demands double pay and a clean passport so he can retire since he is now dealing with Ringer. Quint tails Windom and the Black Moon to a posh restaurant, where Windom is negotiating a deal to sell the prototype to a car manufacturer. Before Quint can get to the disk, a group of auto thieves, led by Nina (
Linda Hamilton Linda Carroll Hamilton (born September 26, 1956) is an American actress. She played Sarah Connor in the '' Terminator'' film series and Catherine Chandler in the television series ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1987–1990), for which she was nomina ...
), steals all of the cars in the parking lot, including the Black Moon off of its trailer. Quint gives chase, and tracks the cars to an office tower, but loses them in the parking garage. Inside the garage, Quint is seen on the security cameras, but no-one recognizes him. Back at the restaurant, Quint is warned by Johnson that he will not get paid and the government's case against The Lucky Dollar will be thrown out of court unless the disk is returned within three days. Quint then goes to Windom and his team and asks for their help in getting the car back, but they refuse, insisting that they go to the police first. After getting the blueprints for the towers from city hall, Quint begins staking them out. The Ryland Towers are a pair of office buildings built by Ed Ryland (
Robert Vaughn Robert Francis Vaughn (November 22, 1932 – November 11, 2016) was an American actor noted for his stage, film and television work. His television roles include the spy Napoleon Solo in the 1960s series '' The Man from U.N.C.L.E.''; th ...
), who is also the head of the stolen car syndicate. The basement of the towers is a large chop shop, and Ryland keeps the best cars for himself and sells the rest. He scolds Nina for stealing a car he does not want and cannot possibly resell, but he also will not allow her to keep it for herself. After seeing Nina leave the towers, Quint follows her to a nightclub. At the club, they meet and go to her apartment. They have sex, then he asks her to help him get the car back; to which she does not respond. Later, Windom and his team go to the towers to look for evidence to give to the police. Ryland's goons kill one of the team members, so they go back to Quint and offer their assistance. Meanwhile, Ringer has tracked down Quint, and he and his men attack him, demanding the return of the disk. Quint is able to kill two of the henchmen, but Ringer gets away. The next day, Nina is summoned by Ryland who confronts her with the tape of Quint outside of the garage, and a tape of them having sex. Deeming her a traitor, he locks her in the closet. Meanwhile, Quint and Windom determine that since the chop shop entrance is impenetrable from the garage, the best way to get in is through the unfinished, unsecured second tower. While Windom destroys the security cameras, Quint goes up the empty tower, crosses over to the other one, and heads down. While descending down a ventilation shaft, he discovers Nina in the locked closet and gets her out. She then agrees to help Quint steal the Black Moon. After knocking out a guard and stealing his uniform, Quint and Nina enter the chop shop and take the Black Moon. Ryland has since learned that Nina is no longer locked up and sees her in the garage. Windom is on the other side of the garage door and blows a hole in it with C-4, but emergency bars drop down to cover the hole in the door, stopping Quint and Nina from escaping. Quint drives the Black Moon into the freight elevator, which takes them to Ryland's office. During the chase on that floor, Nina activates the turbo boost that makes the car reach its top speed. The car then shoots towards a window, hitting and killing Ryland instantly. The car then goes through the window and flies into the unoccupied building. Just as they think they are safe and Quint gets the disk out from the bumper, Ringer shows up to retrieve it. He and Quint start fighting just as Johnson shows up. After a brutal fistfight, Quint knocks out Ringer and takes back the disk and gives it to Johnson, allowing himself to retire. Windom then shows up and is grateful his car is still in one piece, but wonders how they will get it down. The movie ends back at Nina's apartment, where Quint asks her if she is happy she stole the Black Moon. After she says yes, he says that he is too.


Cast

*
Tommy Lee Jones Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film '' The ...
as Sam Quint *
Linda Hamilton Linda Carroll Hamilton (born September 26, 1956) is an American actress. She played Sarah Connor in the '' Terminator'' film series and Catherine Chandler in the television series ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1987–1990), for which she was nomina ...
as Nina *
Robert Vaughn Robert Francis Vaughn (November 22, 1932 – November 11, 2016) was an American actor noted for his stage, film and television work. His television roles include the spy Napoleon Solo in the 1960s series '' The Man from U.N.C.L.E.''; th ...
as Ed Ryland *
Richard Jaeckel Richard Hanley Jaeckel (October 10, 1926 – June 14, 1997) was an American actor of film and television. Jaeckel became a well-known character actor in his career, which spanned six decades. He received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominatio ...
as Earl Windom *
Bubba Smith Charles Aaron Smith (February 28, 1945 – August 3, 2011), commonly known as Bubba Smith, was an American football defensive end and actor. He first came into prominence at Michigan State University, where he twice earned All-American hon ...
as FBI Agent Johnson * Dan Shor as Billy Lyons * Keenan Wynn as John "Iron John" *
Lee Ving Lee James Jude Capallero (born April 10, 1950), also known as Lee Ving, is an American guitarist, singer and actor. Ving is the frontman of the Los Angeles-based hardcore punk band Fear. As an actor, Ving played topless club owner Johnny C. ...
as Marvin Ringer *
William Sanderson William Sanderson (born January 10, 1944) is an American retired actor. He played J. F. Sebastian in the feature film ''Blade Runner'' (1982), and had regular roles on several television series such as Larry on ''Newhart'' (1982–1990), E. B ...
as Tyke Thayden *
Nick Cassavetes Nicholas David Rowland Cassavetes (born May 21, 1959) is an American actor, director, and writer. He has directed such films as '' She's So Lovely'' (1997), '' John Q.'' (2002), '' The Notebook'' (2004), '' Alpha Dog'' (2006), and '' My Sister's ...
as Luis * Don Keith Opper as Emile French *
Townsend Coleman Townsend Coleman is an American voice actor who has performed in many animated series and TV commercials beginning in the early 1980s. Among his most notable roles are Michaelangelo from ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'', Wayne Gretzky on '' ProSta ...
as the Waiter


Production

John Carpenter wrote the script around the time he made ''
Escape From New York ''Escape from New York'' is a 1981 American science fiction film, science fiction action film co-written, co-scored and directed by John Carpenter. It stars Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Adrienne B ...
''. "It was my 'my car is stolen and I'm going to get it back' story," he said. "I have never seen the final film."


Car

The Black Moon was based on the 1980 Wingho Concordia II designed by Bernard Beaujardins and Clyde Kwok, made by Wingho Auto Classique in Montreal. Only one of these had been built, so in the movie, a copy of the car cast from a mold was used for stunts, as well as a third replica of the interior only.


Reception

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...
of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' wrote in his review: "At the start of ''Black Moon Rising'', a new, semi-caper movie, the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
hires a freelance thief named Quint to break into the accounting department of a private company to obtain records needed in a grand jury investigation. However, ''Black Moon Rising'' is not about the F.B.I. and dirty tricks. It's about Quint's attempts to retrieve the records he has stolen after he has hidden them in the trunk of the prototype of a fancy new car, the Black Moon, which itself is then stolen. Thievery as a way of life is what ''Black Moon Rising'' is all about. It's the kind of movie in which thieves are made for each other - in which Nina (
Linda Hamilton Linda Carroll Hamilton (born September 26, 1956) is an American actress. She played Sarah Connor in the '' Terminator'' film series and Catherine Chandler in the television series ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1987–1990), for which she was nomina ...
), a beautiful thief of automobiles, says to Quint (
Tommy Lee Jones Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film '' The ...
), just before he possesses her in her high-tech loft, ''Please, don't lie to me.'' It's also a movie in which people spend a great deal of time getting into and out of cars, or pursuing each other in cars, a lot of them stolen. The film, which opens today at the Criterion and other theaters, 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. ..''Black Moon Rising'' is very much a January movie - something to fill a booking gap." Review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
gives the film a rating of 43%, based on 14 reviews, with an average rating of 4.31/10.


Release

The film was released in US theatres on January 10, 1986.


Home media

The film was released on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
on January 30, 2001 initially, then on December 7, 2007, and finally on November 1, 2011, by
Anchor Bay Entertainment Anchor Bay Entertainment (formerly Video Treasures and Starmaker Entertainment) was an American home entertainment and production company. It was a subsidiary of Starz Inc. Anchor Bay Entertainment marketed and sold feature films, television se ...
. It was released on
Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
from
Kino Lorber Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art house films, ...
on May 14, 2019.


References


Sources

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External links

* * * {{Desmond Nakano 1986 films 1980s action thriller films 1980s crime thriller films American action thriller films American crime thriller films 1980s English-language films Films directed by Harley Cokeliss New World Pictures films Films about automobiles Films with screenplays by John Carpenter Films scored by Lalo Schifrin Films set in the Las Vegas Valley Films shot in Los Angeles Films shot in Los Angeles County, California 1980s American films