For the most part, this is a very good modern film more, slowing down in the middle after a great first third, and becoming exciting again towards the end. Tom Hulce on the surface isn't my idea of a film noir antihero, but as a cartoonist separated from wife Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and drag into a murder investigation, he ends up being the perfect sap. Virginia Madsen is an excellent femme fatale whom he is accused of killing, and somehow ends up with a hitman on his trail are we all go down as he desperately tries to get out of this mess.
Judith Barsi (whose short life and a tragically at the age of 10) is absolutely adorable as his daughter who obviously wants her parents back together. Harry Dean Stanton, excellent as always, covers every bit of investigative territory as the detective on the case. Herta Ware, well remembered as Jack Gilford's ailing wife in "Cocoon", is Hulce"s deaf as a post landlady. Millie Perkins, best remembered as Anne Frank in the 1959 classic, has a surprising smaller role, brought on to add more intensity to the story. Don Keith Opper is quite creepy as the hitman.
So there it is. Basically you have it all, a troubled protagonist, his estranged wife and daughter, the vixen whose entrance into his life promises to give him the time of his life, even if she destroys him in the process. This is very artistic in many ways, dealing with the art world on several levels, and quite well acted. Hulce hides all the mannerisms associated with him from "Amadeus" and other light-hearted eccentric characters, so any misgiving that I had quickly disappeared. Definitely one of the better sexual thrillers with more than just a hint of film noir, up there with "Body Heat" and "Fatal Attraction", and Madsen a much better vixen than would come out of Sharon Stone's character in "Basic Instinct" six years after this. Certainly a lot more profound than that overrated film and sadly not nearly as well remembered.
Judith Barsi (whose short life and a tragically at the age of 10) is absolutely adorable as his daughter who obviously wants her parents back together. Harry Dean Stanton, excellent as always, covers every bit of investigative territory as the detective on the case. Herta Ware, well remembered as Jack Gilford's ailing wife in "Cocoon", is Hulce"s deaf as a post landlady. Millie Perkins, best remembered as Anne Frank in the 1959 classic, has a surprising smaller role, brought on to add more intensity to the story. Don Keith Opper is quite creepy as the hitman.
So there it is. Basically you have it all, a troubled protagonist, his estranged wife and daughter, the vixen whose entrance into his life promises to give him the time of his life, even if she destroys him in the process. This is very artistic in many ways, dealing with the art world on several levels, and quite well acted. Hulce hides all the mannerisms associated with him from "Amadeus" and other light-hearted eccentric characters, so any misgiving that I had quickly disappeared. Definitely one of the better sexual thrillers with more than just a hint of film noir, up there with "Body Heat" and "Fatal Attraction", and Madsen a much better vixen than would come out of Sharon Stone's character in "Basic Instinct" six years after this. Certainly a lot more profound than that overrated film and sadly not nearly as well remembered.