Rapping On My Chamber Door

 
In 1973, just upon the eve of the release of his greatest film ENTER THE DRAGON, Bruce Lee died mysteriously at 33. Bruce of course was the quintessential film fighter. Able to choreograph like Busby Berkeley and move like Gene Kelly, Bruce Lee was personified grace. These talents passed onto his son, Brandon Lee. A young man who was as adept as photogenic. B-movie moguls scooped him up like rocky road. His first movies were fairly shitty. Not unlike his dad’s early work. They were dumb action tales involving some vague revenge. But their hard work in the cesspool eventually floated them to the water lilies. Bruce in DRAGON. And Brandon in the adaptation of the comic book THE CROW…a movie he died making.

THE CROW is set in a grimy urban hell ruled by thugs. A rock guitarist named Eric Draven lived with his fiancée Shelly Webster in said hades and were both brutally killed by a gang of fucks who were responding to a long petition she started in the building to protest its condition. This happened a day before their wedding…Halloween. Eric was pushed out of a six story window and Shelly was beaten and raped and died 36 hours later in the hospital. Sadly, Eric and Shelly took care of a misplaced little girl named Sarah who witnessed the aftermath and suddenly realized she was alone without her surrogate family. This horror shook the soul and according to an old legend it qualified for revenge from the help of a crow who awakens the soul and helps makes things right.

 

 

Enter the crow. One year later, Sarah is placing flowers on the graves of Eric and Shelly when a menacing black bird lands on Eric’s grave. He caws loudly at Sarah which forces her to ask him if he’s the “night watchman or something”. She leaves quietly on her skateboard to meet the only good person left in this awful city, the policeman who investigated the crime so diligently he was placed back on the beat.

 

This is the scene. Enough of history or a synopsis. This is a tale as violent as TAXI DRIVER and as reassuring as THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. Biblical in scale and theme, it succeeds as one of the best comic-based films that not topped until 2004′s BATMAN BEGINS. The unfortunate accident involving blank debris from a scene that required a posse of shots pierced Brandon Lee’s heart by a piece of metal and he died instantly. Once again, his mother Linda Lee had to bury a family member way too soon…and after their brief zenith as artists. Due to this, a movie never has been so spooky in its brazen truth…an open casket funeral with a great soundtrack.

 

Back to the Bible for a second (not a pleasant chore, trust me). The focus of Draven’s resurrection is four awful pricks with great pirate nicknames like Tin Tin and Funboy. These are the four horsemen and if you ignore that then you might as well rent BATMAN AND ROBIN. So here comes Christ again with a flare for Peter Gabriel’s makeup drawer and the most beautiful hair on a man since Michael Hutchence. Draven’s sudden realization of how fun this will be comes from an investigative meeting with a pawn shop owner named Gideon after he slices up his first victim. With his last breath, Tin Tin tells Draven that Shelly’s engagement ring was pawned. In the Bible, Gideon was the strongest angel Jacob wrestled. Unfortunately for the pawning industry there is no real comparison here. The sleaze bag is cowardly and mean yet never knows when to shut up. Eric approaches his shop with the crow on his shoulder and politely knocks despite the fact that he is closing shop. When Gideon tells him to leave, Eric crashes thru the window door quoting Edgar Allen Poe, asking Gideon “you heard me rapping, right?” It’s a gorgeous scene similar to Christ’s temple visit — particularly as he chucks pawned engagement rings at the owner and castigates him for the lives he helped ruin.

Despite the fact that the bad guys all meet their doom at the hands of Draven, when he returns to the grave to reunite with Shelly the crow suddenly caws and leads him to a large church to the 4 pirates’ boss. An unnamed Satan married to his sister, his demons are dead but he is smart enough to try to kill the crow. When the crow is injured — Draven loses his strength like Samson and barely defeats him with a self-induced exorcism of his pain that the little devil falls to his death as Sarah dangles from the rafters. He lifts her up and brings her inside to the church. This is the rectification in the rectory. Eric is done. He can’t stay but he has prepared his prophets