Kathryn Bigelow’s Forgotten Classic “Blue Steel”
Why this 1990 proto-feminist police procedural deserves a revisit
Kathryn Bigelow has a reputation (mostly deserved) as the woman director who makes “guy movies;” and while I’d argue that it’s easier for a woman to make a film that captures a male POV than vice versa, due to the fact that we’re constantly inundated with the “male perspective,” I also want to credit her with being unusually good at it. Which makes it all the more fascinating that Blue Steel wears its femininity proudly without making it the centerpiece of the film. This is an action film that’s great fun to watch and also gives the viewer a lot to chew on thematically, possibly more now than on its release twenty-eight years ago.
Maybe the title was a dead giveaway for everyone else, but I didn’t know how strongly Blue Steel focuses on guns and their effect on their owners. Ron Silver plays Eugene Hunt, an ordinary stockbroker who happens to be present when Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis), a rookie cop on her first day, stops a robbery in progress. When her back is turned, he pockets the gun left by the now-dead assailant, leaving Megan with no backup for her claim that she fired in self-defense. We don’t know what Eugene was like before, but we can infer from his expensive suits and his penthouse apartment that he enjoys the…
