'Tokyo Vice' review: A gritty but not terribly focused crime drama

'I know it's here somewhere... the diner which opens only at midnight, run by the scar-faced man known as Master.' Photos: Handout

A noir-ish fish-out-of-water story about an American in Japan struggling to deal with the police and yakuza while getting pally with a nightclub hostess – wait, isn't that Black Rain, Ridley Scott's 1989 thriller with Michael Douglas and Ken Takakura?

Once, perhaps. Now it's Tokyo Vice, based on the true story of Jake Adelstein, an American from Missouri who became a crime reporter with a major Japanese newspaper.