History Film / StrangeDays

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: More like five minutes into the future. The film takes place less than five years after its release date, yet the world has become a surprisingly futuristic and dystopic place, with [[CrapsackWorld burning cars on every corner, assault rifle-toting convenience store owners, and constant patrols of riot police and National Guard troops in armored vehicles.]]

* [[spoiler: DeceasedFallGuyGambit: Attempted by Max.]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Max:''' So I say to myself, if I turn the job down, he just gets somebody else, and I lose Faith... to coin a phrase. So to buy time, I do the skank, but I still gotta do something about Gant... I figure it's him or me. But I can't just cap him without a chump to take the fall, and who better than his girlfriend's loser ex-boyfriend... a known criminal... who has been seen hassling them in public numerous times?]]\\
[[spoiler: '''Lenny:''' And who was, regrettably, also your best fucking friend.]]\\
[[spoiler: '''Max:''' Well, no plan is perfect, Lenny. Hey, cheer up. World's gonna end in ten minutes anyway.]]

* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Lenny is melancholic, Mace is choleric, Faith is sanguine and Iris is phlegmatic.

* FanService:
** JulietteLewis spends quite a bit of her on-screen time with her panties visible and her top off.

* TalentDouble: Averted; JulietteLewis does the vocals for each of her songs in the film (all of which are originally by PJHarvey).

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Strange_Days_5749.gif]]

A 1995 CyberPunk ScienceFiction movie written by JamesCameron, directed by KathrynBigelow and starring Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett and JulietteLewis.

* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Lenny is melancholic, Mace is choleric, Faith is sanguine, and Iris is phlegmatic.

* EvilVersusEvil: Crooked cops [[spoiler:Steckler and Engelman]] vs. sleazy music producer [[spoiler:Philo Gant]]. They both want [[spoiler:Iris's]] SQUID recording for their own different reasons. And, of course, [[spoiler:Max Peltier]] is playing the whole situation to his own advantage.

* GivingThemTheStrip: Lenny cuts his necktie to avoid being pulled off the balcony along with [[spoiler: Max Peltier]].

* InformedAbility: Jeriko is supposed to be the best rapper around, but the one song we hear from him doesn't support the notion very well.

** Secondly, when fighting [[spoiler: Max Peltier]], he not only holds his own against a complete psychopath, but manages to win out [[spoiler: by ''pulling a knife that had been stabbed into his own back'' out and cutting his tie -- which was the only thing keeping Max from plummeting to his death. Also, we see him worrying before about his tie when he was going to a probable trap. It turns out to save his life.]]

* NietzscheWannabe: Max.

* NietzscheWannabe: Max is constantly coming out with rather pessimistic pre-millennial statements of this nature. [[spoiler: [[{{Foreshadowing}} It's a pretty big clue]] [[FaceHeelTurn pointing towards his true nature]].]]

* NotWithTheSafetyOnYouWont: Mace pulls this on the bald thug. It distracts him long enough to get punched.

** Lenny isn't a ''bad'' guy, but he is presented as a pretty scummy, sleazy loser for a good part of the movie, until we finally learn why Mace is so devoted to him against all odds. [[spoiler:He was the cop who comforted and took care of her son after his father murdered a man while he was in the house. Apparently even going so far as to shelter him in another room so he wouldn't see his father being dragged off in handcuffs. Considering that Lenny is a white cop, Mace and her family are working-class blacks and racial tensions and police mistrust are that high in LA...Yeah, it's a big deal.]]

* ProperlyParanoid: Max, when revealing the existence of the LAPD death squad: "It's not a question of being paranoid, it's whether you're paranoid ''enough''." [[spoiler: Subverted: Max turns out to have made the whole thing up on the spot to cover up his own part in the GambitPileup that seems to be crashing all around them.]]

* PunchClockVillain: Philo's bodyguard Wade. He's genuinely flattered when Lenny (pretends to) recognizes him as a former pro football player. Still beats the stuffing out of him, though.

* RedHerring: [[spoiler: Max goes on about underground police death squads and GovernmentConspiracy, but really, it's all just a simple murder by two crooked racist cops and their attempt to cover it up alone.]]

* SnuffFilm: "Blackjack" vids, in which the user jacked in actually experiences the SQUID wearer's death. The fairly amoral Lenny has a marked distaste for them and refuses to deal in them (the movie opens with him being annoyed at Tick for bringing him a tape of a robbery that ended with the robber's death, because he's going to have to doctor the last bit out).

* TitleDrop: One of the songs in the club scene.
** Also another track on the soundtrack is a cover of TheDoors song "Strange Days."

-->[[spoiler:'''Max:''' So I say to myself, if I turn the job down, he just gets somebody else. And I lose Faith... to coin a phrase. So to buy time, I do the skank. I still gotta do something about Tran... I figure it's him or me... but I can't cap him without a chump to take the fall. And who better than his girlfriend's loser ex-boyfriend... a known criminal... who has been seen hassling them in public numerous times.]]\\

[[spoiler: '''Max:''' No plan is perfect, Lenny. Hey, cheer up. World's gonna end in ten minutes anyway.]]
* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler: Max Peltier.]]

* {{Badass}}: Mace, in spades
** HeartbrokenBadass: Lenny.

* CombatPragmatist: Lenny doesn't fight fair.

-->[[spoiler:'''Max:''' So I say to myself, if I turn the job down, he just gets somebody else. And I lose Faith... to coin a phrase. So to buy time, I do the skank. I still gotta do something about Tran... I figure it's him or me... but I can't cap him without a chump to take the fall. And who better than his girlfriend's loser ex-boyfriend... a known criminal... who has been seen hassling them in public numerous times.]]
-->[[spoiler: '''Lenny:''' And who was, regrettably, also your best fucking friend.]]
-->[[spoiler: '''Max:''' No plan is perfect, Lenny. Hey, cheer up. World's gonna end in ten minutes anyway.]]
* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler: Max.]]

* EvilVersusEvil: [[spoiler: Crooked cops Steckler and Engelman vs. sleazy music producer Philo Gant. They both want Iris's SQUID recording for their own different reasons. And, of course, Max is playing the whole situation to his own advantage]].

* GivingThemTheStrip: Lenny cuts his necktie to avoid being pulled off the balcony along with [[spoiler: Max]].

* InformedAbility: Jeriko is supposed to be the best rapper around, but the one song we hear from him is (argueably) laughably bad.

** Secondly, when fighting [[spoiler: Max]], he not only holds his own against a complete psychopath, but manages to win out [[spoiler: by ''pulling a knife that had been stabbed into his own back'' out and cutting his tie -- which was the only thing keeping Max from plummeting to his death. Also, we see him worrying before about his tie when he was going to a probable trap. It turns out to save his life.]]

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Let's face it; would you mess with a woman called "Mace?"

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Lenny assures Mace that getting into an exclusive New Year's party is "what he does." The next scene, they're already in the party. Apparently the scene where we find out ''how'' they got inside was left on the cutting room floor.

* Nietzsche Wannabe: Max.

* ElectricInstantGratification: Deconstructed.

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Played with - Mace evidently does not give a toss about Faith and is quick to remind Lenny that it's all over between the two of them, but nevertheless ultimately ends up helping him in his efforts to protect / win her.

* PunchClockVillain: Philo's bodyguard Wade. He's genuinely flattered when Lenny recognizes him as a former pro football player. Still beats the stuffing out of him, though.

* SnuffFilm: "Blackjack" vids, in which the user jacked in actually experiences the SQUID wearer's death.

* ForcedToWatch: Iris' killer uses a SQUID recorder with a signal splitter to force her to see and experience her own rape and murder from his perspective.

Lenny Nero (Fiennes) is a grungy ex-cop eking out a lonely, miserable existence in the urban nightmare that is 1999 Los Angeles by dealing in dreams. He sells illegal "SQUID" recordings that allow the user to directly experience moments from people's lives as if they were actually there, living every sight, sound, thought and feeling that the person doing the recording experiences. This allows the user to experience anything - sex, drugs, and even death. Although charming and suave on the surface, Lenny is [[StepfordSmiler deeply unhappy and pathetic]], addicted to his own product and desperately reliving the happy moments from his long-dead relationship with his ex-girlfriend Faith (Lewis), a rising punk musician whom he saved from the gutter only for her to discard him when she began to make it big. The only one of his few remaining friends who doesn't regard him as a washed-up loser is Mace (Bassett), a bodyguard and chauffeur, and Max, a PI with ambiguous morality.