Judgment Night (1993)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Stephen Hopkins

Writers (WGA):

Lewis Colick (story) and
Jere Cunningham (story) ...

Release Date:

15 October 1993 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

Don't Move, Don't Whisper, Don't Even Breathe.

Plot:

When they took the wrong turn, it lead them to witnessing a murder, which left them running for their lives from the perpetrators.

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Desertion | City | Chicago Illinois | Train

Cast

Emilio Estevez	...	Frank Wyatt
Cuba Gooding Jr.	...	Mike Peterson
Denis Leary	...	Fallon
Stephen Dorff	...	John Wyatt
Jeremy Piven	...	Ray Cochran
Peter Greene	...	Sykes
Erik Schrody	...	Rhodes
Michael Wiseman	...	Travis
Michael DeLorenzo	...	Kid
Relioues Webb	...	Dre
Will Zahrn	...	Charley
Eugene Williams	...	Buck
Christine Harnos	...	Linda Wyatt
Galyn Görg	...	Clarissa (as Galyn Gorg)
Angela Alvarado	...	Rita

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA | Japan

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby SR

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Netherlands:12 | Singapore:NC-16 | South Korea:15 | Philippines:R-18 | Spain:18 | New Zealand:M | Australia:MA | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Norway:18 | UK:18 | USA:R | Argentina:18

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Largo Entertainment

Trivia:

Alan Silvestri's first score was rejected. The original score was entirely electronic but the film-makers asked him to beef up with action with an orchestral score. The electronic sounds were dropped and a new score written.

Goofs:

Continuity: After having hit Teddy, Ray leans over to start the RV without having shut it off in the first place.

Quotes:

[Fallon offers Dre a bribe of a handful of blood-soaked money]
Dre: That money's got blood on it, man.
Fallon: You ever seen any that didn't?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Hunters and the Hunted: The Making of 'Predator 2' (2005) (V)

Soundtrack:

Fallin

Great suspense, awesome set-pieces

Since seeing this film I've never been comfortable with Denis Leary as a comedian because he's so damn convincing as the cold-hearted bad guy in this. I think he's a great actor but this is the movie to see him in as it's A. His best performance and B. One of the best villains ever in movies.

Judgment Night kind of comes across as a modern, urban Deliverance. There are many similarities between them but Judgment Night clearly has more excitement. Estevez, Gooding Jnr, Piven and Dorff play well off each other and Piven especially seems to really get into the whiny runt of his character.

Leary plays Fallon, a dangerous criminal from Chicago's bad side. And when the four pals cross him and witness a murder carried out by him a chase across derelict landscapes follows. Peter Greene, an actor I always like to see, plays Sykes, one of Fallon's cohorts as well as Everlast from the rap group House of Pain as Rhodes. They sure do make a threatening impression.

Director Stephen Hopkins (who also did Predator 2 and Blown Away) uses creeping camera movements and neo-noir lighting to provoke multiple eerie moments as well as a great deal of tension. Slow-mo and warped sound effects are also used to great effect in the finale.

The DVD by Universal massively improves on the old release by Goodtimes. Now the film is brilliantly presented in it's proper aspect ratio of 2.35:1. This new framing wonderfully compliments the Gothic atmosphere and brooding silhouette photography. The terrible Dolby 2.0 soundtrack has been dropped and replaced with a grand DTS 5.1 track (Judgment Night was one of the first movies to be released in DTS). For the presentation of the movie it's surely a great package but the only extra is a trailer. It's still a must buy!