Time and time again, the movies prove that drivers for any given state’s Department of Corrections are the worst. Fifteen years before the best example of this — The Fugitive’s “bus, meet train” incident — Blackout boasted an utterly avoidable crash of the DoC’s prisoner-transport wagon, thereby loosing a few hardened criminals onto the Big Apple’s darkened streets.
Inspired by NYC’s real-life citywide blackout of July 13, 1977, this Canadian-made thriller largely confines itself to an apartment high rise, in which the felons — led by a deceptively clean-cut Robert Carradine (Revenge of the Nerds) — go floor to floor, robbing, raping and setting fire to priceless Picassos during the 12-hour electricity outage. And only an out-of-shape, off-duty cop played by Jim Mitchum (Monstroid) can stop them!
Even before the crime spree begins, a lot is going on within the building: for starters, a Greek wedding, an African-American birth, a man on life support and Ray Milland gritting his teeth in yet another of his late-career Angry Old Man roles (see: Frogs). Meanwhile, over at utilities provider Con Edison, cigar-chomping technicians scream at a primitive, wall-sized city grid as if they are jammed in the friggin’ middle of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
They’re not — and I’m being kind by including the ’98 made-for-TV version starring Edward James Olmos in that apples-to-crabapples comparison. The dormant Blackout is not unwatchable; it’s just a wasted opportunity, as director Eddy Matalon (Cathy’s Curse) overall fails to take advantage of the possibilities offered by his unique setting. The exception is the parking-garage chase between Mitchum and Carradine, but that’s the film’s next-to-last scene — a little too late to start figuring things out. —Rod Lott