Freelance thief Tommy Lee Jones is hired to steal some accounting reports from a corporation. Lucky for him, they’re marked “ACCOUNTING REPORTS” in big, block letters. Unlucky for him, he triggers the alarm during this assignment and is forced to hide the cassette in the back of the Black Moon — an experimental super-car that runs on water and hits 325 mph — during a chance meeting at a gas station.
He tracks the Black Moon to a hotel, where, unlucky for him, professional car thief Linda Hamilton steals it for boss Robert Vaughn’s chop shop, hidden in the basement of a twin high rise. Lucky for him, Hamilton’s having some issues with her boss, so she agrees to help him steal it. Unlucky for him, she also beds down with him — seriously, she kind of looks like a dude.
The fun of Black Moon Rising is all contained in the final third, with the nighttime break-in of the tower, the theft and the escape, all with cranky-puss Tommy Lee climbing through air shafts and doing donuts.
Any movie set in a high-rise at night automatically carries a cachet of cool (unless it stars Paul Reiser), but imagine how much cooler this would have been if screenwriter John Carpenter had directed it as well. This was an early Carpenter script dusted off after he hit it big, so his involvement is limited. But it’s a fairly well-crafted B-picture that knows every so often, you just gotta focus on the car. —Rod Lott
Man, it’s hard to believe that there was a time when Tommy Lee Jones’ face didn’t look like a dog’s gnarled up chew toy.
Big fun. Saw this at the Budco Millside back when it came out. Like pretty much every other New World release.