Eye for an Eye (1996)
DIRECTOR: John Schlesinger
CAST: Sally Field, Ed Harris, Kiefer Sutherland, Joe Mantegna, Beverly D’Angelo, Charlyane Woodard, Philip Baker Hall, Keith David
REVIEW:
Eye for an Eye is a particularly nasty piece of audience emotional manipulation that plays on primal fears, served up courtesy of luridly disturbing scenes of sexual violence, to guide us into accepting the filmmakers’ case for vigilante justice. In truth, I’m less offended by the filmmakers’ views than I am by the cheap and exploitative route they take to try to get us in their corner.
Continue readingThe Client (1994)
DIRECTOR: Joel Schumacher
CAST:
Brad Renfro, Susan Sarandon, Tommy Lee Jones, Mary-Louise Parker, Anthony LaPaglia, Ossie Davis, J.T. Walsh, Bradley Whitford, Anthony Heald, William Sanderson, Kim Coates, Will Patton, Anthony Edwards, Micole Mercurio, William H. Macy, Ron Dean, Walter Olkewicz, David Speck
REVIEW:
The Client is a slickly-crafted thriller that is almost- but not quite- saved from its own accelerating plot unlikelihoods by a competent production and capable performances. Continue reading
Guilty as Sin (1993)
DIRECTOR: Sidney Lumet
CAST: Rebecca De Mornay, Don Johnson, Jack Warden, Stephen Lang
REVIEW:
Guilty as Sin is a slickly, if somewhat shallowly, entertaining courtroom/psychological drama/thriller that serves up plot complications like clockwork, all in moderately engrossing if not particularly surprising or electrifying. It’s not a great courtroom or thriller classic, but it’s an adequate diversion for 107 minutes.
Continue readingAlien 3 (1992)
DIRECTOR: David Fincher
CAST:
Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Charles S. Dutton, Brian Glover, Ralph Brown, Pete Postlethwaite, Lance Henriksen
REVIEW:
The phrase ‘third time’s the charm’ doesn’t ring true for the Alien series. Alien was a solid start, and Aliens represented the series at its peak; everything else was downhill from there. Given the notoriously tumultuous production, with the storyline going through various and wildly contrasting versions, ever changing directors, a multitude of screenwriters, clashes between directors and producers and lead actress Sigourney Weaver, and the production running significantly over budget, with millions of dollars wasted on elaborate set pieces that never ended up being used due to the script in continuous rewrites throughout filming, it’s a small wonder the movie ever ended up getting finished in halfway watchable form at all, but in retrospect I’m not sure if it was worth the effort. Alien 3 is a dark, dreary, and depressing experience. Which is not to say that Alien or Aliens were uplifting movies, but the third entry smacks of a lot of pointless nastiness without redeeming qualities. Continue reading
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
DIRECTOR: James Cameron
CAST:
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick, Joe Morton, Earl Boen
REVIEW:
With 1984’s The Terminator , then fledgling filmmaker James Cameron displayed narrative prowess, a deft hand with action sequences, and economical use of a limited budget. Continue reading
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
DIRECTOR: Jonathan Demme
CAST:
Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald, Diane Baker, Brooke Smith, Chris Isaak, Charles Napier, Daniel von Bargen
REVIEW:
Few cinematic villains are a source of as much morbid fascination as Hannibal Lecter. Like the heroine Clarice Starling, we are frightened and disturbed by him, and yet we are too intrigued to turn our eyes away. Dr. Lecter is undoubtebly the character best-remembered from the psychological thriller The Silence of the Lambs, and the acclaim showered on Anthony Hopkins for his Oscar-winning performance sometimes threatens to overshadow Jodie Foster’s also Oscar-winning lead role as FBI trainee Clarice Starling, a fine performance and a well-developed character in her own right. Clarice and Hannibal are two of the strongest characters ever written and acted in a horror movie, and they are given a script that does them justice, a dark, intelligent thriller that relies much less on blood and guts than on well-honed characterizations, a few scenes of indelible purely verbal interactions, and a vivid sense of atmosphere. All of these elements combined to make The Silence of the Lambs a classic of the thriller genre and earned it five Academy Awards in 1991. Continue reading
Sleeping With The Enemy (1991)
DIRECTOR: Joseph Ruben
CAST: Julia Roberts, Patrick Bergin, Kevin Anderson
REVIEW:
Sleeping With The Enemy briefly flirts with a semi-serious, down-to-earth study of domestic abuse, and then disappointingly quickly abandons any pretensions of anything loftier than a generic thriller where the heroine can run, but she can’t hide. What follows might have still been a moderately engaging diversion, but an already bad aftertaste of disappointment from its more promising opening is further undone by manufactured plot contrivances and a narrative that only gets more rote and by-the-numbers as it slips into its generic slasher movie finale.
Continue readingMisery (1990)
DIRECTOR: Rob Reiner
CAST: James Caan, Kathy Bates, Richard Farnsworth, Frances Sternhagen, Lauren Bacall
REVIEW:
Following 1986’s Stand By Me, Rob Reiner has now chosen to bring another one of Stephen King’s stories to the screen, this time Misery, an adaptation of King’s same-named 1987 novel. Misery delves further into the horror genre—well-traversed territory for King—than the coming-of-age story Stand By Me but avoids any supernatural elements. The horror here is of the comparatively banal variety but one suspects may be a fear sprung from Stephen King’s own imagination: the obsessed fan.
Continue readingDesperate Hours (1990)
DIRECTOR: Michael Cimino
CAST: Anthony Hopkins, Mickey Rourke, Lindsay Crouse, Mimi Rogers, Kelly Lynch, David Morse, Elias Koteas
REVIEW:
Bad movies are a dime a dozen. We generally know what they’re trying to do, they’re just not very good at doing it. Desperate Hours is on a whole other level, a movie not merely incompetent—although it’s that too—but so relentlessly strange that by the end, one is wondering what everyone involved is smoking, and if the proceedings might have been more enjoyable—if not necessarily more coherent—if you’d had some too. A loose remake of a same-named 1955 William Wyler film starring Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March and an earlier Broadway play, both written by Joseph Hayes, it’s purportedly loosely “inspired by real events”, although it also shares plot similarities with the 1951 John Garfield film “He Ran All The Way”. Director Michael Cimino and a script credited to Joseph Hayes, Lawrence Konner, and Mark Rosenthal tries to craft a slow burn suspense thriller, but seemingly have absolutely no idea how to go about it, and the result is an overwrought melodrama with ridiculous dialogue, unintentionally comical overacting, and plot holes you could drive a truck through. Unless one is imbibed enough to find the nonsensical proceedings hilarious, the only Desperate Hours might be the ones endured by the viewer.
Continue readingNarrow Margin (1990)
DIRECTOR: Peter Hyams
CAST: Gene Hackman, Anne Archer, James B. Sikking, Nigel Bennett, Susan Hogan, J.T. Walsh, M. Emmet Walsh, Harris Yulin
REVIEW:
A loose remake of 1952’s The Narrow Margin, Narrow Margin is a nicely old-school, no-frills, lean and taut thriller that relies more on good old-fashioned cat-and-mouse suspense than flashy action sequences or special effects, with a brisk 99 minute runtime that gets in, gets the job done efficiently, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. It might not be the deepest or most substantial experience, but for those simply seeking a good old-fashioned suspense thriller, it’s a solidly diverting time. Continue reading