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The looming expiration of his four year lifespan life cycle makes Roy Batty’s quest desperately urgent and stunningly poignant, and Rutger Hauer’s intricate portrayal adds great emotional weight to the story. Meanwhile, Harrison Ford’s performance is a source of great angst to me. Ford’s approach to acting tends to reduce each character to one or two basic emotional states, and he rarely deviates from this for the course of the film. Han Solo is a “lovable maverick”. Indiana Jones is a “lovable intellectual maverick”. Allie Fox (The Mosquito Coast) is an “idealistic intellectual maverick”. John Book (Witness) is a “sensitive idealistic maverick”. Jack Ryan is a “naïve, idealistic intellectual maverick”. You get the point. I see Ford as kind of just being himself in most of the roles he plays, and adjusting the degree to which he does it depending on the requirements of the script. He’s a tremendously engaging actor thanks to his charisma, but in my opinion he lacks nuance.

As a result, in the climactic scene near the end of Blade Runner, you have Rutger Hauer giving one of the best performances of his life. He IS Roy Batty - a flawed, noble revolutionary who is struggling with the fact that he may have failed at the most important thing he ever tried to do. It’s touching. It’s tragic. It’s terrific. And opposite him you have Harrison Ford, being....Harrison Ford, doing that “beleaguered everyman” thing he does with almost every role. It’s not bad, it doesn’t ruin the film and it ultimately does work just fine. I consider myself a fan of Harrison Ford and I am in no way claiming he is not deserving of his success. But each time I watch Blade Runner, I can’t help but wonder how a great film might have been even greater were someone with more range cast as Deckard. It’s just a thought.

But once a film becomes legend it’s impossible to imagine it any other way than the way it is. Blade Runner’s biggest single flaw is a painful expository scene early in the film. Bryant provides Deckard with a ton of back story on Replicants that seems completely unnecessary, since we’ve literally just been told that Deckard is the best Replicant hunter in the world. But legendary films have legendary flaws, and just as we do with people we love we tend to excuse gaping flaws in the films that we love. When something moves you, touches you, shows you beauty that you weren’t expecting and instills you with faith you never knew you had, you can forgive it almost anything. To err is human, to forgive is divine, and to experience both at the same time...well, it kind of makes you MORE human than human. I encourage you to experience Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, and to decide for yourself. It’s one of the greatest movies ever made – and if you let it be, it’s one of the most profound and moving experiences you’ll ever have watching one.

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