Strange Days: Difference between revisions

{{tropelist}}

* [[Action Girl]]: Mace. It pretty much takes an entire police SWAT team to kick her ass. Also an [[Action Mom]].

* [[Alternate History]]: Didn't start out as one, but [[History Marches On]].

* [[Cyberpunk]]: The film is a cyberpunk story notable for being set in the very near future, with only minor advances in overall technology.

* [[Dark Action Girl]]: One of Gant's three thugs is a muscular woman.

* [[Deus Ex Machina]]: The riot started when Mace gets beaten on by a SWAT team dissipates almost immediately just because the Police Commissioner tells everyone to calm down. To be fair, he ''does'' have a large SWAT team and National Guard unit backing him up when he does this.

* [[Dirty Cop]]: Steckler and Engelman.

* [[Evil Versus Evil]]: {{spoiler|Crooked cops Steckler and Engelman vs. sleazy music producer Philo Gant. They both want Iris's SQUID recording for their own different reasons. And, of course, Max is playing the whole situation to his own advantage}}.

* [[Fan Disservice]]: A rape-murder scene featuring nudity is still a rape-murder scene. Lenny's [[Vomit Discretion Shot|reaction]] pretty much conveys the feelings of the audience.

* [[Not on the List]] When Lenny Nero tries to get in to the Retinal Fetish.

* [[Not with the Safety On, You Won't]]: Mace pulls this on the bald thug. It distracts him long enough to get punched.

* [[The Oner]]: All of the SQUID recordings are portrayed as one long unbroken shot from a POV cam.

* [[Pet the Dog]]:

** Lenny isn't a ''bad'' guy, but he is presented as a pretty scummy, sleazy loser for a good part of the movie, until we finally learn why Mace is so devoted to him against all odds. {{spoiler|He was the cop who comforted, took care of her son after his father murdered a man while he was in the house. Apparently even going so far as to sheltered him in another room so he wouldn't see his father being dragged off in handcuffs. Considering that Lenny is a white cop, Mace and her family are working-class blacks and racial tensions are that high in LA...Yeah, it's a big deal.}}

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: {{spoiler|After being exposed as Jeriko One's murderer, being arrested and seeing his partner blow his own brains out rather than be arrested while they were handcuffed together, Officer Steckler is '' not'' happy with Mace.}}

** Steckler and Engelman's [[Ho Yay]] did not hurt matters.

* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]]: Lenny assures Mace that getting into an exclusive New Year's party is "what he does." The next scene, they're already in the party. Apparently the scene where we find out ''how'' they got inside was left on the cutting room floor.

* [[Woman in Black]]: Mace is a black woman who wears black while on the job.

* [[World Half Empty]]: Summed up by the radio talk show at the beginning of the film, describing how everything had gone to hell in the last few years.

* [[Xanatos Speed Chess]]: {{spoiler|Max's story about the LAPD death squad turns out to be one of these.}}

* [[Zeerust]]: Leaving aside the fact that SQUID hasn't made an appearance yet, some of the film's fashions look pretty absurd, and there's also a moment with a voice-''transcribing'' answer machine that raises an eyebrow these days. Also, the kind of outspoken gangster rap that the film portrays as part of a major social movement had gone out of style by 2000. Nor was Los Angeles quite the borderline-anarchic urban warzone the movie depicts it as either.