The Worst Film Ever

A Masterpiece!

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Psychiatrist Dr. Isaac Barr (Richard Gere) is treating Diana Baylor (Uma Thurman). His testimony gets Pepe Carrero released angering police detective Huggins (Keith David). Diana's sister Heather Evans (Kim Basinger) comes to his office. They have an affair but her husband Jimmy Evans (Eric Roberts) is a violent Greek gangster.This tries to be a Hitchcockian thriller using every superficial ways. The acting is melodramatically broad. Even the music is reminiscent of the most popular Hitchcock. It feels old and badly overwrought. It's a showy copy of better movies. It would be more compelling to NOT show the killing. It would allow the audience to guess at the truth of the incident and build paranoia which the great master would have done. The movie has to understand that the psychobabble is meaningless to the normal audience. This relies on us believing the jury would buy the psychobabble. For a movie relying on psychiatry, these people are simple-minded. I don't feel for any of these characters. I certainly don't care about Gere's character and by extension, I don't care about this movie.

Final Analysis, is a film that really puts a spin on psychological thrillers, and it's a spin I love. Re teaming here is Gere and Basinger after that forgettable No Mercy back in 87, and Basinger here shows no mercy when killing her rich and abusive gangster husband, (Roberts). Rightly so, he deserved to die as he's a real bastard to her, even in restaurants, where he gives Gere the bad eye, for ogling her. We then meet em' in the toilet, it's a bit of an tense and unnerving moment. Gere plays a psychiatrist, and he isn't bad, as is Basinger as the murderess, where I like Thurman's enigmatic and twisted performance more. FA does take a while to move along. Be patient. Stretching out to a two hour running time, he does beautifully flow as did Jennifer 8. We more so want Robert's to die, where too, there's layers to Basinger's motives besides ridding him of his abuse. And I really liked where this went. When Gere really finds out what happened, he himself is cornered, on the account of a missing attachment to a dumbbell, which has his prints on it, a no finer moment for Basinger who says threateningly to Gere, "Don't f with me Issac". I liked the fact too, that Keith David was in this as a hardened detective who doesn't approve of Gere's prognosis's, even suggesting David should have a session, after letting a young mentally ill Latino kid, free. Gere later uses him (and I'm glad the kid didn't die) to retrieve that missing piece of dumbbell. Basinger is bloody hot in this too, where she could almost smoke up a scene anywhere. The ending is one of the most suspenseful ones I've seen in a thriller, at that light house. The photography shots are awesome, where this film is pretty awesome, but I don't want to press it. One of the best best psychological dramas of 1992.

It is one of those films that I never cared for back in the early 90s, but sifting thru the ex rentals for a pound at blockbuster I thought it was worth a purchase to revisit with older eyes. Well sadly it still fails to grab me with any urgency and still comes across as a poor mans Hitchcock movie, and one the big man probably would of discarded himself.The story works on a basic thriller level, and some decent sequences are worth the 5/10 rating that I give the film, but the film suffers for drawing out the characters far too long in the first hour, and then killing off the best character on show, I mean sure everyone loves a bad guy but here Eric Roberts villain turn is the shining light, and it leaves such a hole in the film when he departs it never manages to recover. The rest of the cast are merely average, I like Richard Gere, in fact I'm a fan, but he is going thru the motions here, whilst the solid Keith David overdoes his role and becomes annoying come the final reel. Kim Basinger looks gorgeous but struggles to put any conviction into a layered role calling for devilment ?, Uma Thurman is fresh and honest but she also gets bogged down by the maudlin writing.Nice sets, nice ending, shame about its core, 5/10.

Richard Gere and Kim Basinger reunite from 1986's mediocre "No Mercy" for this outlandish, just-as-shallow would-be murder mystery. Occasionally enjoyable, fruity concoction concerns psychiatrist Gere becoming involved with two sexy sisters who are hoping to formulate the perfect murder plot. Lots of story twists, each one more preposterous than the last, but with a slick production and a fine climax atop a lighthouse. Gere looks a bit ill-at-ease, but Basinger and Uma Thurman are both very good. Eric Roberts is eliminated early (a plus), but Keith David flounders in the hopeless role of the detective on the sisters' trail. For viewers in the requisite silly spirit, not too bad. ** from ****