For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway) is a celebrated fashion photographer. She is haunted by visions from a killer's eyesight. At her gala, she encounters police detective John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones) who hates the photos of violence against semi-nude women without knowing it's her. Those around her are killed and Neville investigates. Her pictures seem to mimic real crime scenes. Tommy Ludlow (Brad Dourif) is her driver. Donald Phelps (René Auberjonois) is her manager. Michael Reisler (Raul Julia) is her possessive ex-husband.The killer's vision needs better consistency. It's mostly first person POV except sometimes it goes up to the murder weapon. It becomes more traditional but it needs to stay with the first person POV. Otherwise, it's a nice premise and the visual mostly works. It has blood and gore but like the photos, they are too stagey. The first thing that caught my eye is the writing credit for John Carpenter. This is pre-Halloween by a couple of months. If it somehow got released after Halloween, I'm sure they would have promoted Carpenter's script to death and it would be an even bigger hit. The great cast is doing good work. There is a twist that seems more for twist's sake. This is a nice middling mystery thriller although the pacing is not always that thrilling.

An enjoyable, time-wasting thriller which, if not entirely successful, is still pretty good stuff. Even though most reviews of this film are negative, they fail to mention the fabulous cast, the hilarious dating of the music (sung by Barbara Streisland of all people) and, primarily, of the fashions. This benefits from a strong screenplay by John Carpenter which thankfully never deviates from the story too much, thus staying interesting. Horror fans will be kept entertained by the brief flashes of eyeball violence (always cringe-worthy stuff) and P.O.V. shots from the killer which narrowly predate HALLOWEEN (but of course, are copied from BLACK Christmas) and cleverly break through the "fourth wall" of the camera, thus propelling the viewer into the action - although it's a shame that this second sight is so cloudy and difficult to see through! The film is sufficiently bleak-looking, with the New York locations looking inhuman (hard streets, faceless masses, a mass of industry) and the sets dingy and shadow-filled. Of primary concern are sex and death, which Mars links together in her fashion shoots in a way that would have the BBFC and the moral guardians of the UK seething! Totally lacking in any special effects, this film downplays the supernatural element (which is incidentally never explained or reasoned) in favour of a murder-mystery thriller type plot with copious use of red herrings.Faye Dunaway is the pale, fragile-looking lead, and being a leading actress of her time, as you would expect she is good and a character to root for. Tommy Lee Jones is rather stony-faced (like in most of his films actually) to start off with but his character loosens up later on. Stealing the show is a manic-eyed Brad Dourif - looking extremely shifty in his brown leather jacket, curly hair and stubble - as the chauffeur. Rene Auberjonois hams for all his worth as a highly camp fashion designer (who even dresses in drag in one scene), and is absolutely hilarious. Also appearing briefly is the late Raul Julia as another shifty suspect.The twist ending can be seen a mile off, and it's pretty obvious to spot the identity of the real killer. The explanation behind the murders is a bit trite but good for a laugh, and is pulled off thanks to some good acting from the person playing the murderer (no names here I'm afraid!). Although not a brilliant movie by any means, this is better than a lot of low-budget trash being released at the latter end of the '70s, and I say give it a go to all those who may have been put off by the harsh words of the critics. It's a film which can be watched either seriously or humorously and works both ways - personally I enjoyed both.

Jon Peters''The eyes of Laura Mars' symbolizes the moods & sty-lings of the 1970-s -- as much as Michelangelo Antonioni's famous 'Blow Up' does for the 1960-s.Consequently Laura Mars' lasting visuals outshine its story by far. Bright and dashing, glittering all around, these visuals strongly remind us of what the 1970-s really were about: sexual freedom unhampered by AIDS (which emerged as late as the 1980-s).However, I spot a significant difference with 'Blow Up'. Antonioni has his 1960-s visuals brilliantly supported by a half hidden and intriguing story. Unfortunately 'The eyes of Laura Mars' lacks such a refined extra value. Although not bad, this film's story reminds us of a mediocre police series on your television. It may even degrade its visual brilliance.Apart from its new & newly tolerated sexual freedom, there is not much left to tell about the 1970-s. So maybe Laura Mars' quality-gap between visuals and story may function to symbolize this remarkable era after all.

This film has always been a bit of an anomaly.When I first saw it as a kid I thought it was awful and wonderful. And today, it hits me exactly the same way.Yes, it's got a crass, urban-sleaze vibe a la the late-'70s, which is both its weakness and its strength.Even though I'm very fond of the 1970s (and it got a bad rap during the endless revisionism of the '80s) there was a definitively sleazy, gutter undertone to the latter half of the decade which worked its way into even mainstream movies. (CRUISING and DRESSED TO KILL and CALIGULA and LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR all seem prime examples which, while not graphic by today's standards maybe, nonetheless tapped into the sordid, carnally apocalyptic tone of the day). Likewise, the period seemed the apex of real life serial killer zeitgeist somehow.And the period plays a key role in why they don't entirely work -- and yet why they DO work.The '70s had a melancholy, breezy, sexy thing going on which defined the decade, yet the last half of that decade also had an odd gutter-smarm undercurrent which is hard to describe but at the time was hard to miss... It wasn't the only era to give us real life serial sex murderers, but -- gee! -- no other era seemed to fit it so well.Movies tapped into this vibe as well. And if it was going to do so effectively, you had to wind up getting a bit queasy during or after watching it. And that was these films' strengths as well as their vulnerability to partly-valid criticism.Curiously, motion pictures can get much more explicit today, but few of them feel so utterly fetishistic as those from the late-'70s. These pictures were repellent in many ways, largely on purpose. But their sordid-beyond-belief flavor was absolutely part of the zeitgeist of the time. And I retained an interest in them without fully condoning them.They're period pieces, essentially. And valuable for that reason.And they sort of define that old, over-used idea that "it's so bad it's good." Ultimately, despite the elements that don't entirely work, the overall film just does.Film critic Janet Maslin said about it at the time, "...It's the cleverness of EYES that counts, cleverness that manifests itself in superlative casting, dryly controlled direction from Irvin Kershner, and spectacular settings that turn New York into the kind of eerie, lavish dreamland that could exist only in the idle noodlings of the very, very hip..." And George Lucas hired Irvin Kershner to direct THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK on the strength of EYES OF LAURA MARS.