Director John McNaughton made several quite good films of a variety of directions during his career. In the action-packed genre, he also showed himself to be a skilled creator, but something went wrong in the film in question. Initially, the idea of the picture is very interesting, telling about an interstellar criminal who was subjected to the most terrible punishment for atrocities by insect-like brothers on UFOs: changed at the genetic level and exiled to a backward planet with a primitive form of life. Of course, to us, and where else? Turned into a person, he will wander around the city, meet with all kinds of types, get into various situations, and occasionally tear off his heads, inserting into his place, reinforcing the original English title, which can be translated as “borrower”. A couple of police detectives are taken on the case, while an alien draws information in such an inhuman way.
Having such a plot, the author has on his hands the makings of several genres. Firstly, these are comical scenes about an alien getting acquainted with our life in the street layer of the lower strata of society, which sometimes cause a smile from bringing absurdity into the frame. But involuntarily you understand that the production is extremely far from comedy, and if you take into account satire or even metaphor, then the undeservedly little-known film “The Brother from Another Planet” is a hundred times better, where the world of disenfranchised scum from urban backyards is much more clearly displayed through the crystal clear prism of the sympathetic gaze of the invented alien. Secondly, the story along the way makes a slant into a psychological thriller about a policewoman who is pursued by a crazy criminal who resembles a maniac. Here, in general, you can give a number of successful paintings of a similar concept that managed to convey the genre sharpness better, and without the disharmony of the accompanying side fantastic plot in the script. Recognisable Ray Dong Chong well conveys to the viewer the feelings of his heroine, interspersing there the moral contradictions of an almost sexist conflict, only a special acting game is not required due to an imbalance with constant jumps into a grotesque horror movie, shaded by a symbiosis from a maniac man and a woman with a token. Completes all the third element of the action movie about a tireless invulnerable alien, changing his guises, spreading chaos around him while he is caught by detectives. Unfortunately, a rich shooter-killer on the screen can not be found. Catastrophically missing the drive, chase, fights, explosions and all that we love the cool action movie of the 80s “The Hidden” with the same idea, but brought to mind.
So it turns out in the dry residue that genre disunity argues with each other, causing allusions to other films where there was plot conciseness, adding a successful result. The comedy turned out to be controversial, the action movie came out dull, the police thriller spoils the fantastic color, represented by a couple of colorful scenes with the metamorphosis of the alien. From the genre by thread - the viewer is the most unpretentious action film.
5 out of 10