Plot
A hideously scarred and mentally unstable scientist seeks revenge against the crooks who made him like that.

Release Year: 1990

Rating: 6.4/10 (23,124 voted)

Director: Sam Raimi

Stars: Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Colin Friels

Storyline
Peyton Westlake is a scientist who has discovered a way to produce synthetic skin. This could revolutionise skin grafting, except for one minor glitch; the synthetic skin degrades after 100 minutes of exposure to light. When gangsters attack Peyton, he is horrifically burnt, and assumed dead. In his quest for revenge, Peyton, aka the Darkman, is able to take on the appearance of anyone (using the synthetic skin,) but he's only got 100 minutes per disguise.

Writers: Sam Raimi, Chuck Pfarrer

Cast:
Liam Neeson - Peyton Westlake / Darkman
Frances McDormand - Julie Hastings
Colin Friels - Louis Strack Jr.
Larry Drake - Robert G. Durant
Nelson Mashita - Yakitito
Jessie Lawrence Ferguson - Eddie Black
Rafael H. Robledo - Rudy Guzman
Dan Hicks - Skip (as Danny Hicks)
Ted Raimi - Rick (as Theodore Raimi)
Dan Bell - Smiley
Nicholas Worth - Pauly
Aaron Lustig - Martin Katz
Arsenio 'Sonny' Trinidad - Hung Fat
Said Faraj - Convenience Store Clerk
Nathan Jung - Chinese Warrior

Taglines: Who Is Darkman? Find Out This August.

Release Date: 24 August 1990

Filming Locations: 3rd Street Tunnel, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office Details

Budget: $16,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $8,054,000 (USA) (24 August 1990) (1786 Screens)

Gross: $48,878,520 (Worldwide) (1991)

Runtime: 96 min

Trivia:
A display case in Robert Durant's mansion seems to imply that he is a veteran of the U.S. Army's famed 101st Airborne Division.

Goofs:
Factual errors: When Durant and company are destroying Westlake's lab, Durant is seen turning the valve on a tank of flammable gas to let the gas out. However, he turns the valve handle clockwise, which would shut the valve, not open it.

Quotes:
[first lines]
Eddie Black: [on phone] 'Cause he's an asshole! Tell him no. Tell him no, too. Him, tell "fuck you." No, I'm gonna be here a minute. Got some guy coming up who thinks he's gonna muscle me out of my property. What's it matter! Just another tough guy, that's all.

Was _very_ impressed -- what could have been a forgettable Z-movie turned out to be something rather profound

Rating:

This movie might have joined the ranks of the utterly forgettable Z-movies of the genre had it not been for excellent direction, superb characterization, and outstanding acting on the part of Liam Neeson, who played Peyton Westlake/Darkman, and Larry Drake, who played his enemy, the arch-villain, Durant. The movie presents the destruction of a man by a psychopathic monster for utterly trivial reasons -- and makes it clear that however horrifying the physical damage perpetrated on Peyton Westlake by Durant's minions might be, the effect on his soul and spirit is far worse. At the same time, it showed that in spite of what happened to him, Westlake/Darkman was able to rise above it at least enough to choose the life of a giver of justice rather than one of evil, as the physically unscarred drug-lord Durant & Co., the _real_ monsters in this film, had. This film does _not_ glamorize psychopathic, criminal violence in any way, but rather shows it for what it really is: repellant, ugly, and contemptible, destroying life and everything that supports it without a qualm for no better reason than cheap thrills or a very minor profit. This is _not_ a typical Hollywood film, nor just a cheap garage-flick monster movie special. It shows with graphic realism exactly what is left when conscience, civilization, and the rest of the more delicate mechanisms that constitute our humanity are stripped away: pure beastliness, without glamour and without redemption of any sort. -- And it shows, as well, that even when everything is taken from a man, he can rise above it, choose to remain a man, however damaged, rather than sinking down to the level of the beast.

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