Simply Perfect

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Best movie ever!

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

FEMME FATALE is another example of how Brian De Palma's star has waned over the years. Give me the director circa 1980 and the likes of DRESSED TO KILL and BLOW OUT and he could do no wrong; but as with many of the young directors of the 1970s, he seems to be unable to make a good film these days. FEMME FATALE, written and directed by De Palma, is a case in point. It's a confusing, convoluted thriller, badly over-directed by the once great; the opening robbery sequence should be amazing, featuring orchestral music, shocking scenes of violence and sexuality, and hard-working cinematography. Instead it feels overblown and silly, and it's hard not to burst into laughter at the earnestness of it all.Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, best known as the blue-skinned mutant in X-MEN, is a poor choice for the lead role; she just doesn't have the acting chops for the job. Antonio Banderas is better, but underutilised and acting with tongue in cheek for the most part (and who can blame him?). The film seems to go on forever and deals one unconvincing plot twist after another, and in the end it just went over me rather than involving me.

**SPOILER ALERT - The last paragraph makes reference to a 1940s film that constitutes a spoiler. ** There rarely seems to be anything in between where Brian De Palma films are concerned, cinematic lovers of all kinds by and large either trash or laud his films. Femme Fatale is no different, one critic - both professional or amateur - will have it as a 1/10 movie, another will have it at the maximum rate available. Femme Fatale is high grade stuff if one is either a De Palma fan or a lover of film noir. Conversely if these two things don't tick your film loving boxes then the law of averages suggests you should have - or should - stayed/stay away from it.De Palma opens up the doors to his fun house and invites noir lovers to come on in and enjoy. It's difficult to write about the plot because it holds many twists and turns, it's a veritable supply of uppers and downers, twisters and benders, all sexed up and pumped full of De Palma's trademark tricks and devilish rug pulls. In truth the story and set-up is predictable, but the journey is what makes the pic ooze quality and bare faced cheek, with the director giggling away like a schoolgirl in the background.Opening up with a sequence that sees our titular fatale (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) watching famed noir classic Double Indemnity, De Palma proceeds to homage and love the film noir world. As he uses split-screens, canted angles, up-tilt shots, shadow plays etc, the narrative pulses with eroticism and impending cruelty, this really is a femme fatale based movie of the grandest kind. As events unfurl, with hapless photographer Nicola Bardo (a fun packed Antonio Banderas) caught in the web, Ryuichi Sakamoto's magnificent classical based score swirls around like some sort of peeping tom. The latter of which finds a shifty accomplice in Thierry Arbogast's noir photography.It's a picture awash with dupes, dopes and vengeful criminals, where the themes of identity, duality, sexuality and distorted perceptions gnaw away at those investing fully in the viewing experience. Some critics (prof and amat) have lazily likened the film to David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, as if De Palma in 6 short months watched Lynch's movie and then knocked this film out! The copy-cat charge as funny as the rug-pull that De Palma pulls here. Besides, as any film noir lover will tell you, this has more in keeping with Fritz Lang's 1944 noirer "The Woman in the Window" than Lynch's film, which is no bad thing at all, and De Palma knew that. 8/10

I'm not a huge movie buff, so I just saw this movie on cable ten years after it was made. Aside from Body Double (one of the best movies ever made), and perhaps Bonfire of the Vanities and Blow Out, this is De Palma's best work. The star, Rebecca Romijn, is fantastic in a dual role, and viewers will hate her until the very end. Perhaps that is why the box office was not very good?? No one will be able to predict the end of this movie, it is so unexpected. There are scenes in this movie that you will have to work hard to fit in. I need to watch it again for that reason, but it also a reason that the movie is so good. If you get the entire movie the first time, it's not that great a movie. How the producers spent $35mil on this movie, however, is beyond me. Eastwood could have done it for less than a third of that.

If you enjoy watching Brian De Palma move the camera around, this is the film for you because De Palma does everything here but shove the camera up his butt and give himself a colonoscopy. For the rest of us, actually watching a colonoscopy would be more entertaining and rewarding than sitting through Femme Fatale.Before I get to the plot, I first have to say that Rebecca Romijn probably sets a new standard here in the category of "Models who embarrass themselves by trying to act". Now, I know what you're thinking. "How could she possible be worse than Cindy Crawford in Fair Game?" It does seem both physically and metaphysically impossible for any model to be a more pathetic thespian than Crawford trying to pass herself off as an attorney. Well somehow, possibly with the aid of the Devil or some lesser demonic entity, Romijn manages to suck even more. There's not an ounce of conviction in anything she says, her range of expression goes all the way from heavily medicated to lightly sedated and she moves like a poorly operated animatronic figure. Romijn is trying to portray a con-woman in this movie, but she's not even believable as a human being.In fairness, Romijn might not have been THIS awesomely terrible without her director apparently doing everything he could to magnify and exaggerate her weaknesses. In the first 40 minutes of Femme Fatale, Romijn is on screen almost the entire time but has less than 40 seconds of dialog. That means she's asked to carry off her role solely on the strength of her ability to emote. Unfortunately, Romijn radiates emotion like a frozen corpse in a Siberian blizzard. It is honestly uncomfortable to see her fail so miserably at conveying the simplest and most elemental of feelings. Then when Romijn does get to talk, De Palma saddles her with a French accent, which is a little like asking the world's worst cook to make a soufflé.As for the plot, Romijn plays a beautiful enigma who betrays her partners in a jewel theft and manages to run into a woman who looks exactly like her, so she steals the other woman's identity to hide from her vengeful former comrades. As her doppelganger, Romijn's character meets a U.S. diplomat (Peter Coyote) and marries him. 7 years later, a handsome non-entity (Antonio Banderas) manages to take a photo of Romijn's character, which launches her into a ludicrously convoluted scheme to extort money from her husband and disappear before her betrayed buddies can track her down and kill her. I really can't go any further into the plot without spraining my brain. This isn't one of those stories where things don't make sense. This is one of those stories where it is impossible for things to make sense. There are holes in this plot that even De Palma himself couldn't explain away if I stuck his genitals in a garbage disposal and threatened to flip the switch.Oh, and that whole "running into someone who looks exactly like you at the precise moment you need to hide your true identity" thing? Sounds pretty convenient, doesn't it? Well, there's a twist at the end of this film that's a billion times more absurd than that. I'd tell you what it is, except then I'd feel compelled to go on for at least another 5,000 words about how bizarrely, insultingly ridiculous it is and life is too short for that.Femme Fatale is a f***ing fiasco.