Cabbie and neophyte writer Michael Nouri is about to start up his meter for the fare of a lifetime in BLACK ICE. Before this cat-and-mouse game grows wearisome, it generates a fair amount of suspense.
After she botches a sexual blackmail scheme instigated by her corrupt superiors at the CIA, Vanessa (Joanna Pacula) runs for her life; hired to keep Congressman Eric Weaver (Arnie Olsen) in line, Vanessa is considered expendable when Weaver is accidentally killed after a post-coital argument.
Instantly smitten with Vanessa, cabbie Ben Shorr (Nouri) drives her to the airport and then makes a deal to drive her to Seattle. Meanwhile agent Quinn (Michael Ironside) pursues his former top secret employee with the determination of Javert stalking Jean Valjean. After extracting their
whereabouts from Ben's boss Lloyd Carter (Mickey Jones), Quinn cold-bloodedly murders the taxi company owner.
While feeding Ben fragments of her plight, Vanessa is betrayed by her contact in Minneapolis; she shoots the man. And although Quinn is temporarily waylaid for shooting at Ben and Vanessa, the local cops quickly release him. Wherever Vanessa flees, Quinn's agents have already paved the way for her
capture, including the murder of her friend, a nurse in Billings, Montana. After Vanessa zaps a fake nurse with a heart fibrillator, she reveals her secret to Ben, tells him to disappear and heads for a train. Like all good cabbies, Ben is trained to see his customer to the door. Determined to
cover up his own mistakes, Quinn pulls a gun on Vanessa in the train yard, but Ben intervenes. In the ensuing shootout, Vanessa is fatally shot, and a wounded Quinn stumbles into the path of an oncoming train.
Perfectly cast as a mystery woman, Pacula (GORKY PARK, THE KISS) is an enticing foil for Nouri's (FLASHDANCE, TOTAL EXPOSURE) guileless cabbie. And given one of his best showcases for abject villainy, Ironside (TOTALL RECALL, MCBAIN) gives spies everywhere a bad name. Too often, however, the film
seems to fall in love with the admittedly gorgeous scenery, at the expense of dramatic tension. Also, the screenplay and direction falter in finding a balance between Nouri and Pacula's doomed romance and the basic run-for-your-life suspense mechanism; instead of complementing each other, these
two angles get in each other's way. Nonetheless, even if the excitement is never allowed to grow to a fever pitch, BLACK ICE does have a few nerve-wracking moments, particularly the instant heart attack scene in the Montana clinic.
Crisper editing and a stronger focus on suspense rather than subtle human drama might have elevated BLACK ICE to a higher stratum. As it stands, it's an occasionally chilling thriller with a few too many stopovers. (Extreme violence, profanity, nudity, sexual situations.) leave a comment
