John Chard

Stuck in between its aims. *** This review may contain spoilers *** It is one of those films that I never cared for back in the early 90s, but sifting through the ex-rentals for a pound at Blockbuster I thought it was worth a purchase to revisit with older eyes. Well, sadly it still fails to grab me with any urgency and still comes across as a poor man's Hitchcock movie, and one the big man probably would of discarded himself. The story works on a basic thriller level, and some decent sequences are worth spending the time viewing, but the film suffers for drawing out the characters for far too long in the first hour, and to compound matters by then killing off the best character on show. I mean sure everyone loves a bad guy but here Eric Roberts' villain turn is the shining light, and it leaves such a hole in the film when he departs it never manages to recover. The rest of the cast are merely average, I like Richard Gere, in fact I'm a big fan, but he is going through the motions here, whilst the solid Keith David overdoes his role and becomes annoying come the final reel. Kim Basinger looks gorgeous but struggles to put any conviction into a layered role calling for femme fatale devilment, while Uma Thurman is fresh and honest but she also gets bogged down by the maudlin writing. Nice sets, nice ending, shame about its core. 5/10