History Film / StrangeDays

* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Mace thinks this of Nero (especially since he comforted her son after his father had committed a murder back when Nero was a police officer.)

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: [[spoiler:Lenny and Mace]].

* DeathByIrony: [[spoiler:Max dies when Nero cuts off the tie Max had been mocking earlier, using the same knife he tried to kill him with moments before to do so.]]

* DeathByIrony: [[spoiler:Max dies when Nero cuts off the tie Max had been mocking earlier.]]

* DeweyDefeatsTruman: When it was written it was set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture so it didn't start as an alternate history, but the turn of the millennium came and went by without the societal upheavals depicted in the film.

* {{Slimeball}}: Lenny is introduced this way, as an obnoxiously dressed pusher who's always trying to get another hustle going. Over the course of the film, he find that he's got HiddenDepths.

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 two of his few remaining friends who don't regard him as a washed-up loser are Mace (Bassett), a bodyguard and chauffeur, and Max, a paranoid and cynical PI with ambiguous morality.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Strange_Days_5749.gif]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[{{Tagline}} You know you want it]].]]

* ActionGirl: Mace. It pretty much takes an entire police [=SWAT=] team to kick her ass. Also an ActionMom.

%%* TrappedInASinkingCar

* VomitIndiscretionShot: After viewing [[spoiler:[[{{Squick}} the recording of Iris being raped and murdered]]]], Lenny goes tumbling out of the back of Mace's car and vomits messily all over the pavement.

* BullyingADragon: [[spoiler:Jeriko One ''really'' should have kept his mouth shut after the cops pulled him over. Granted, Steckler probably still would have shot him anyway]].

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

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Lenny tends to pretend to be cowardly to make his opponent underestimate him. Just ask a bouncer. Lenny ''used to be a street cop'', after all.

* ShoutOut:
** Nero quips, "[[WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle Fan mail from some flounder?]]"
** The title comes from Music/TheDoors' [[Music/StrangeDays second album]]; a cover of the title track appears on the soundtrack.

* TitleDrop: The song coming from Tick's van when Lenny, Mace and Max visit him on New Year's Eve is a cover of Music/TheDoors song "Strange Days", from ''Music/StrangeDays''.

** There's also a scene demonstrating the more pornographic applications of SQUID via a brief [[GirlOnGirlIsHot girl-on-girl scene]] featuring genuine porn star Kylie Ireland.

* WomanInWhite: Gant's DarkActionGirl has bleached white hair, pale skin, and a pale wardrobe.

* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler:Averted. Turns out Max's made the whole "death squad" thing up as part of his XanatosSpeedChess. The two cops acted alone, but technically a conspiracy is committed by two or more people, and the cops did work in the government, so...]]

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Lenny.

* KillerCop: Steckler and Engelman.

* NeverBringAKnifeToAGunFight: While trying to get into a party, Mace beats up on Gant's thugs before finally pulling a gun on the knife-wielding female thug. She shrugs and says, "Enjoy the party!"

** 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]].

* 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. The scene where we find out ''how'' they got inside was left on the cutting room floor, and later included on the DVD.

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: an in-universe example, when Philo slips from a generic Transatlantic accent into a more Cockney one while raging at Lenny. (Michael Wincott, the actor playing Philo, is actually Canadian.)