Jan. 31, 2003 - 3:34 pm
this was a recommendation from my friend Greg who i work with at the media center. he's the night supervisor there and has very similar taste to me in classic films. we were looking at Ebert's list and we were discussing which films on there we had and had not seen. this is a film noir crime drama...well i guess it's not in black and white, but it's basically film noir. it stars Kathleen Turner and William Hurt.
William Hurt plays Ned Racine, an attorney practicing in a small Florida town during a heatwave. he meets a married woman named Matty and they get involved in a steamy affair. they soon decide that they need to kill her rich husband in order to be together and start living the good life, but the murder plot seems to be one that's bound to crash and burn. it becomes questionable very quickly as to whether or not they'll be able to get away with it, and it starts to look like Matty is a little more plotting than she would at first have us believe.
i don't think i've ever used this description before, but this movie is riveting. i seriously couldn't take my eyes off of it. it's very exciting. things get so screwed up that you just have to laugh to yourself. it's really amazing the way things play out in this. Lawrence Kasdan has been a very successful author for years, and now i can see why. he wrote and directed this film. he also wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and the last two Star Wars films, along with quite a few other notable things. i guess this is just another example of how well something can be done when it's done in an auteur fashion. if you take that approach as a director, you konw that everything's inherently going to be done as correctly as possible. since you have nearly total control of the final product from start to finish, there's less chance of the material getting dulled down. great work.
this was Kathleen Turner's first film and she was excellent in it. this might be the best thing i've seen her in before. you know, except Serial Mom (1994). right. but it looks like this was also one of William Hurt's first films. it kind of freaked me out seeing them so young. it also seems strange to me that both of them would grow to become so famous later on. i guess this great film didn't hurt their careers at all though. it was also weird to see Ted Danson in this film being his usually goofy self. but it made sense for his character. good movie. you should see it.