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PalmettoRating:
Release Date: 04 August, 1998 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $17.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Complete Cast (10 total) |
Palmetto Reviews
Noir Gone Bad
This movie is horrible. Good Cast with nothing to work with. If it was to be satire on traditional noir films it missed the point. If it is trying to be a noir film than it is ridiculous.
Shue is particularly bad. Unbelievable as a screen siren. Laughed everytime she tried to be seductive or coy.
Plot completely implausible and even at the end did not tell us who Shue or Sevigny really are. If Harry was really that easily pulled into seduction, the plot would have had him do Odette. The movie copped out in plot, dialogue and scenes. You got to show more skin and sex if you are going to believe the sexual attraction.
Had the feel and production values of a college project.
Great Semi-Noir Mystery-Comedy that is truly entertaining !!!
Much has been said about how German director, Volker Schlondorff with the able assistance of American screenwriter E. Max Frye, infused this rather conventional plot with some wonderful, completely original elements. My personal favorites are:
1) Woody Harrelson portrays (quite well) a "normal", fallible person, Harry Barber (even his name is conflicted and clever), in a completely abnormal (but admittedly self-inflicted) situation. He is often clumsy in his attempts to be cool....he cannot resist seductive women or easy money....and he ends up a comic loser (again and again), rather than emerging as the traditional stoic, humorless hero/victim. Harry can't resist Elizabeth's charms (or tongue) even while suspended over a vat of acid, seconds from a hideous death, while his girlfriend (played by Gina Gershon) is nearby and watching!!! Indeed, he is an anti-hero with whom virtually anyone in the audience can relate....his antics are human, believable, and at times hilarious.
2) Elizabeth Shue, in addition to being one of the sexiest, nastiest women on God's earth, is also a superb comic actress, in the Carole Lombard tradition. Her flights of fancy, wierd expressions, and overall daffiness are a great change of pace. Compare her to Kathleen Turner in "Body Heat" and see who portrays a more interesting character....Kathleen is cold and infallible, while you never know what to expect next from Elizabeth. Watch her expressions and behavior closely in the last scene in which she appears....what is she thinking??? I personally find this complexity much more entertaining...and plausible. And let's face it, anyone involved in a sinister plot such as this would have to be at least half insane.
I strongly recommend this movie to all mature viewers who appreciate a change of pace from the traditional "film noir"....it is extremely original, fiendishly clever, funny as heck, and thoroughly entertaining.
More Customer Reviews (8 total)
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