As far as public perceptions go, very few professions have been subjected to scrutiny and division amongst the general population than police officers – many view them as admirable individuals who pledge their lives to serving and protecting the community. In contrast, others find their constant abuse of power and tendency to resort to needless violence a major reason for either reforming the system or even entirely dismantling it to get rid of the compounding flaws that have resulted in very polarising reactions to those who work in this otherwise important field. This has been even more prevalent in the modern era, which makes efforts to look back at works produced about law enforcement quite challenging, particularly those that sometimes take a one-dimensional view of the profession and the people involved. One of the few early films that directly addresses the intrinsic flaws that are inherent to the field is Blue Steel, in which Kathryn Bigelow tells the story of a rookie officer who finds herself embroiled in a sinister conspiracy after a violent confrontation with a petty thief, plunging her into a state of perpetual paranoia as she begins to be stalked by a witness who sees the opportunity to manipulate this clearly inexperienced but still very dedicated cop, leading her on a chase through New York City, insistent on carefully and methodically unravelling her sanity until he can fully take advantage. A complex and harsh film that represents one of Bigelow’s most ambitious offerings, Blue Steel is a fascinating film. It is not always successful in every one of its endeavours, and several elements needed further work to be entirely successful, but for the most part, it is a film with bold intentions and a sense of urgency that has allowed it to remain unfortunately very relevant, even several decades after its release. Not necessarily the most well-crafted or thorough film that Bigelow has directed, but rather one in which we see her style gradually starting to develop into the more concise and layered that we would see in later years, the film has many intriguing ideas and offers us poignant glimpses into the trials and tribulations of someone who did not realize the extent to which her chosen vocation with impinge on her domestic life and psychological wellbeing.

Blue Steel is a very deliberate film, with Bigelow being completely aware of the social and cultural milieux that surrounded the story, using this to her advantage as she weaves this story. New York City in particular becomes a major component of the film, particularly in its atmosphere and tone. Through a contemporary lens, the city is known for being extremely modern and often considered one of the idealistic views of what a major metropolis should aspire towards. However, we know that this was not always the case, since from around the mid-century to the precipice of the current one, it was seen as being partially a seedy hotbed of sordid values, filled with criminal activity and defined by a sense of debauchery. Bigelow evokes this particular mood throughout the film, examining the city as a place where chaos has begun to overtake decent society, and where the battle between good and evil is continuously being fought, and mainly being won by the more sinister forces. Blue Steel presents an almost dystopian version of society, one in which those who had pledged their life to the pursuit of justice are consistently being challenged by the swaths of people dedicated to taking advantage of what many considered to be a society in collapse. It is certainly hyperbolic, and the film doesn’t veer away from this sense of melodrama in any meaningful way, but it does make quite an impression, particularly in how it constructs itself as essentially a game of cat-and-mouse between the police and criminals, with both groups being represented by the two central characters, who are in a perpetual state of challenging one another to be the more dominant in this bizarre relationship they form throughout the film. Certain qualities are difficult to describe when it comes to defining this film and how it handles its challenging subject matter, but looking at it as a series of encounters between these two characters as they engage in this violent series of confrontations is a solid way to understand Bigelow’s intentions and the overall themes that define the film.

A large portion of both the appeal of the film at the time and its cultural cache over the years can be attributed to Jamie Lee Curtis, who made Blue Steel right at the peak of her popularity and took place at the time when she was attempting to make a legitimate case for herself as the next major genre star, something that is partially true, albeit not to the extent that seemed to be the intention at the time. She’s objectively a fantastic actor when given the right material, but ultimately this film is slightly too meandering for her to make much of an impression. She is far more skilled when she is allowed to play a character with distinct and memorable traits, rather than a relatively conventional heroine without much personality, something that becomes abundantly clear as the film progresses and we start to see that there is not much beneath the surface when it comes to the protagonist. Curtis is a strong actor, but only when the role gives her something to do, and the part of Megan Turner is far too much of a cypher to leave any valuable impression. Surprisingly, it’s the supporting cast that somehow is given the strongest material – Ron Silver is suitably chilling as the film’s main villain, a man driven to madness through sheer curiosity, while Clancy Brown makes the best of his small but memorable part as the dedicated police officer who is paired with Curtis. A small but fantastic performance from Louise Fletcher as Curtis’ mother adds much-needed gravitas to the film, and a cavalcade of remarkable character actors such as Richard Jenkins, Kevin Dunn and Tom Sizemore are peppered throughout the film. Unfortunately, the strength of the actors is not matched by the characters and how they are written, which creates quite an imbalanced and otherwise lacklustre film that doesn’t quite know how to develop anything beyond mere archetypes.

However, despite containing quite a few interesting elements, Blue Steel is still not a film that we can consider entirely successful, even outside of Curtis’ spirited but deeply flawed performance. Ultimately, Bigelow was still developing her voice as a filmmaker at this point, and while she did have a couple of great films under her belt by the time she began constructing this one, she still wasn’t entirely established when it came to both storytelling technique and visual detail, both of which are the sources of quite a few problems embedded deep within this film. The story at the heart of Blue Steel is intriguing but quite limited in its perspective, primarily because it doesn’t have a clear sense of where it wants to go or the underlying message. It isn’t enough to attempt to be a gritty story of a rookie cop trying her best to serve her community, since this is all established within the first few moments, and it’s an obvious trope that has very little narrative substance considering how obvious it tends to be. Bigelow has a great personal style (although she would only really start to develop it entirely in the coming years), and Blue Steel does have a very distinct tone to match its somewhat unorthodox visual approach – it’s a well-made film, but one that comes across as somewhat hollow after a while, since while the action sequences are magnetic and compelling, it’s the moments in between, particularly the more intimate scenes that require a more carefully attention to detail, that she struggles to fully establish, leading to an imbalanced film that doesn’t entirely know how to amplify the more important character-based details that were integral to the development of the story. It doesn’t necessarily invalidate the merits of the film, but it does mean that it sometimes falls short in the areas that matter the most, which ultimately compounds into a film with good ideas, but a lacklustre execution in several areas.

Blue Steel is a film that is very much a remnant of the era in which it was made, and beyond the subject matter being very relevant based on the continued discourse around the urgent need for reform within the law enforcement community (which has only grown louder as time has progressed and the population has grown more incredulous to the concept of having blind faith in the police), it has not aged particularly well. Fortunately, nearly everyone involved in the film has done much better work, so they are by no means bound to this as anything close to their defining work. Bigelow was still developing her voice as a director, and it constantly shows throughout the film, with a few excellent sequences showing promise, but unfortunately being dampened by the more lacklustre approach to character development and story progression. Curtis was already mostly established as a genre performer, and she (as well as the rest of the cast) does whatever possible to elevate the material beyond being merely passable, an admirable pursuit but one that sadly falls short in practice. Entertaining for the most part, but still quite lacking in terms of its perspective and how it develops on certain themes, Blue Steel is nothing major and is best viewed as a product of the early 1990s, particularly in how it captures both the mood and tempo of New York City at this moment in the past, both visually and in terms of the underlying sensibilities. A decent film, but one that isn’t always entirely clear of what it wants to achieve, it feels like a minor work, but one that is still at least partially engaging to those who are already interested in the genre. For everyone else, it’s not anything particularly worthwhile, with most of its promising elements being squandered, leaving very little to convert those who aren’t enamoured with the subject.