BESTSELLERS I: MICHAEL CRICHTON: JURASSIC PARK, RISING SUN
against the Japanese, and was the most racist novel I had ever read. Kaufman tries to tone down the novel's racism, and make things more even-handed, but he can't do much with the plot.
A call girl is found murdered in a conference room in the Nakatomo Building during a party. Brought in to help Lt. Tom Graham (Harvey Keitel) solve the case are two liaisons from LAPD - Lt. Web Smith (Wesley Snipes) and Capt. John Connor (Sean Connery). Of the two, Connor is the more expert, having spent several years in Japan, knowing the language, the customs, and even some of the principals in the case. Among them are the chief suspect, Eddie Sakamura (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), the boyfriend of the call girl. A security camera seems to have caught on tape Eddie committing the murder. However, video expert Jingo Asakuma (Tia Carrere) finds out the disc was altered. Plus, as Connor and Smith find out, there are other people involved, including Senator John Morton (Ray Wise), whose vote in allowing Nakatomo to merge with another company is crucial, Morton's aide Bob Richmond (Kevin Anderson), who knows more than he's telling, and Ishihara (Stan Egi), the company's public relations officer, who also knows more than he's telling.
What made the novel so racist wasn't just the stereotypes, but the idea that the Japanese have invented certain cutthroat practices that they, quite frankly, probably learned from us. Kaufman and co-writer Michael Backes (with an uncredited assist from David Mamet) try to make things more even-handed. For starters, he changes the identity of the killer (except we still sense who's really pulling the strings). And the rhetoric is dialed down a notch. But most of the changes seem cosmetic. One guesses Snipes was cast to make things more complex on a racial perspective, but it stops with the casting (except for a scene where, to lose pursuers, Smith and Connor drive to a 'hood in L.A., and Smith gives advice to Connor on how to handle himself). More importantly, the plot is dour and skeletal, just as in the book, and Kaufman, a more humanistic director, can't do much with it.
Crichton wrote the part specifically for Connery, so it seems natural that Connery would feel at ease here. He doesn't need to emphasize his toughness, he just is tough. Because they get to play characters that let them cut loose, Keitel and Tagawa have fun
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