Product Details

• Actors: Denzel Washington, John Lithgow, Ice-T, Kevin Pollak, Lindsay Wagner
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Hbo Home Video
• VHS Release Date: January 13, 1993
• Run Time: 104 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302314097
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,204 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This sleeper star vehicle for Denzel Washington is a campy revenge thriller in the Brian De Palma style. Director Russell Mulcahy (The Shadow) makes the most of the opportunity to showcase two great actors in an exaggerated story of cops, robbers, and revenge. Denzel Washington (Glory, Crimson Tide) plays a cop who becomes a rising legal star as a result of arresting master criminal John Lithgow (The World According to Garp). Lithgow escapes prison, fakes his own death, and sets about framing lawyer Washington for various crimes and methodically destroys his life, until Washington enlists the help of childhood friend and drug dealer Ice-T (New Jack City) to turn the tables and put his tormentor out of business for good. Lurid and violent, the film is also happily over the top, making Ricochet a cheerfully decadent indulgence. --Robert Lane

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exhilirating, May 16, 2000

By 

TheIrrationalMan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ricochet (DVD)

This is a brilliantly scripted and acted action-suspense-thriller. Some scenes are extra-violent, with one prison guard having his torso carved in half with a power tool during a break-out; in another scene, the chief villain is sent flying off a tower and ends up pinned like a beetle on a pole. The first half is undoubtedly the best, with its tense and absorbing psychological battle between Earl Blake (John Lithgow) and Nick Styles (Denzel Washington) the smart, wise-cracking cop who put him away, and who then turns succesful District Attorney. It is Styles's success that Blake venomously grudges and so he hatches an elaborate and devious plan from out of prison to destroy Styles. The second half of the film is characterised by implausibility and anti-climax. But on the whole, the dialogue is above the average and the action has a hard-trimmed, gritty quality about it.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Lithgow, July 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Ricochet (DVD)

Lithgow is awesome as master criminal Earl Blake. A 'bad dude' who spectacularly breaks out of a maximum-security jail. His mission: to deconstruct the life of the cop who jailed him. What follows is one of the most energetic movies I've ever seen. The camera never stays still and is constantly gliding around the actors, twisting and turning and framing at bizarre angles. Watch out for a beautifully shot sequence in which Blake has the cop held hostage, drugs him and then pays for a prostitute to have sex with him - there is some fantastic lighting here, and great acting. A deadpan face, hilarious one-liners and the coolest haircut - it can only be Lithgow doing what he does best: playing a bad guy.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite films..., June 1, 2004

By 

Brad Cooper "Author of Guilty by Association" (Beckley, WV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ricochet (DVD)

I can remember the first time I saw this movie. It was on HBO right after the George Foreman vs. Lou Savarese fight a few years back. Being a film with Denzel Washington and John Lithgow, I was surprised that I hadn't heard of it before then but was in for a big surprise.

Being a 1991 film (and an HBO Original Production), this was made before Denzel Washington really hit it big but it's one of his finest films in my opinion. While Washington portays a young cop turned bright futured district attorney, the best job in the film is done by John Lithgow, who plays one of the best psychotic yet genius characters in recent memory (Earl Talbot Blake). Lithgow, in fact, does such a good job playing this insane yet calculating killer hell bent on revenge that it's very strange to turn around and watch him on 3rd Rock From The Sun!

The supporting characters played by Ice-T and Kevin Pollak are well done and well written, but also very important in the storyline...something that isn't always true in mainstream films.

The plot is very interesting, and not something that has been 'done to death'. As the film winds down, it seems a little predictable but also the only suitable way for everything to end. Ok, so it's not a blockbuster 4 star masterpiece, but RICOCHET is still a very well written film that is action packed and keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end. Highly recommended.