Sci-Fi Noir Masterpiece! Scott's pinnacle in movie-making/Ford at his iconoclastic best/Hauer's chilling iconic greatest career high

Rating: 10/10 (27 February 2003)

BLADE RUNNER (DIRECTOR'S CUT) (1982) **** Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Brion James, William Sanderson, Daryl Hannah, Joanna Cassidy, M. Emmett Walsh, Joe Turkel. Visually atmospheric histrionics set the bleak setting of futuristic hell in Los Angeles of the dour "blade runner" Deckard bounty hunting renegade replicants led by psychopathic android Roy Batty (appropriately named and Hauer's best performance of his career) out to terminate his maker. Iconoclastic blend of sci-fi and film noir with dazzling set design. Based on Philip K. Dick's cult genre novel 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep'. This edition dismisses the droning narration (incidentally Ford did this on purpose when the studio forced director Ridley Scott to include it for clarity in protest but ironically appropriate for his Philip Marlowesque character) and restore its original ending. Visionary film-making at its best. My favorite lines: James as Leon to Ford's Deckard in a compromising position: 'Wake up. Time to die.' And Hauer's bemused Batty to a fleeing Deckard 'Where're you going?' during the climactic climb atop The Bradbury Building, as well as his improvised "like tears in rain" speech which always gets me.