Offensive

I will grant you that this is a slick and fast-paced story with outstanding casting. Connery and Snipes have great screen chemistry, and Keitel is good as always as are others in the supporting cast.

However, it is also the case that in the first seven minutes it manages to collapse every facet of US-Japanese relations into cliche, often of the most xenophobic variety. The Japanese are portrayed as ants competing with the American ethos of individualism; we see their fascination with Americana and especially the mythology of the Old West and the freedom of the open range; the attraction of their men to American women; their quaint negotiating styles; their ascendency in high tech including high tech for industrial espionage; their "inscrutability" in both business and personal settings; and their contemporary economic power.

The image of the anthill as a metaphor of the frenetically productive Japanese would not have been so offensive had it not been followed by the image of it getting trampled underneath the hoof of the American cowboy's horse. It's an arrogant, coarse gesture meant to assure us that the culture of the Open Range will prevail.

The film works as a thriller, and as an indicator of the level of anxiety America experienced when Japan loomed as a more serious economic rival than it does today.

What it is not is any kind of fairminded or intriguing portrait of U.S.-Japanese relations.