Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Everything about "The Last Seduction" is totally outrageous; its characters, its plot and most of all its femme fatale who scales previously unchartered levels of wickedness and cruelty in order to satisfy her lust for money and her desire to eliminate her husband. Realism and suspense are the main casualties as this cleverly plotted thriller entertains by being provocative, humorous and nicely twisted. As a 1994 neo-noir, it's stylish, well-written and in contrast to its 1940s and 1950s predecessors, is also able to end in a way that wouldn't have been possible in the days of the Hollywood Production Code.After completing a drug deal with a couple of very threatening gangsters, Clay Gregory (Bill Pullman) returns to his New York apartment with his nerves in shreds and $700,000 stuffed inside his shirt. With enough cash to pay off his huge gambling debts and buy a smart penthouse apartment, he's starting to feel relieved until his sharp-tongued wife, Bridget (Linda Fiorentino) calls him an idiot and he responds by slapping her across the face. When he then decides to take a shower, Bridget promptly bags all the money, leaves the apartment at great speed and doesn't stop until she gets to a small town called Beston (near Buffalo). There, in a small bar, she gets picked up by a local young man called Mike Swale (Peter Berg) and they launch into an affair in which she's the dominant partner and uses Mike purely as a "sex object".Bridget, (now calling herself Wendy Kroy), takes a job at the Beston insurance company where Mike also works as a claims adjuster and ignores him when he says that he wants a relationship that's more than purely physical. Her main preoccupation is to devise a way of keeping all the money she's stolen and making sure that her husband isn't able to claim any of it. Clay is desperate because he's being "leaned on" heavily by the loan sharks who want him to repay his debts and so he hires a private investigator called Harlan (Bill Nunn) who traces Bridget and makes an attempt to recover the money. The way in which Bridget deals with the threat that Harlan poses turns out to be amusing, unorthodox and ultimately, very effective.Through his work, Mike is aware of a method of recognising cheating husbands by checking out their credit card arrangements and when he tells Bridget the details, she soon gets to work on a plan to use this method to set Mike up to kill Clay. Inevitably though, numerous problems then arise as the not-very-bright Mike attempts to complete his mission.One of the best features of this movie is its dialogue which is often sharp and witty with Bridget's conversations with her lawyer Frank Griffith (J.T. Walsh) providing some particularly entertaining exchanges. At one point he asks "Anybody checked you for a heartbeat lately?" and on another, when she asks "Are you still a lawyer?" he replies "Are you still a self-serving bitch?" Linda Fiorentino's character in the movie has all the typical femme fatale qualities, such as being manipulative, treacherous and deadly but is also incredibly ill-mannered, coarse and amoral as she ruthlessly deals with every man who gets in her way. Fiorentino does a great job of displaying all the swagger, attitude and coldness that makes Bridget Gregory so odious and memorable and Bill Pullman and Bill Nunn also do well in their supporting roles.

So clever. Linda Fiorentino is a fabulously evil Lauren Bacall type in this amazing stylish thriller. If I'm not watching a comedy, this is exactly what I want. The story twists make sense and before the final knife plunge (metaphoric, not a spoiler) I felt like I was right in it. The chemistry between the leads is unbelievable. Peter Berg can meet me i a dark alley anytime. This movie is a total classic and belongs up there with film noir crime dramas like The Maltese Falcon, This Gun For Hire, Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, Key Largo, etc. The dialogue is razor sharp, the leads are fantastic, the story makes sense and if you're a fan of 1940s crime films, I think you will love it.

American director John Dahl's film "The Last Seduction" has been described as a 'film noir'.This is not a very apt description for a film which has numerous comedy and drama elements in its screenplay. Based on an original screenplay his film depicts how some men are fooled by a beautiful looking vicious woman who would go to any extent to earn money.Although the film begins in New York city there is much to learn about American culture once its action shifts to a small town.It is funny to watch how there are hardly any black people in that town.Moreover,the attitude of town's inhabitants is extremely partial when they see a black man in their midst.Domestic violence has come to be known as a global problem.This film is one of the few crime films which did not choose to ignore the depiction of domestic violence in order to distance itself from society's ills.Apart from actress Linda Florentino's performance as an outstanding "femme fatale",there are nice performances by Bill Pullman and Peter Berg as idiots who allow a beautiful looking lady crook to fool them.

I probably missed this one as many people did because of the way it was released, first on television and then in the theaters. I wanted to check it out because I'm a fan of Linda Fiorentino from Vision Quest. I was pleasantly surprised how captivating this movie was from the beginning. Intrigue quickly became fascination for me with the characters and the mind play between her and her two male supporting actors. I think you'll find this movie entertaining even if you're taken back by the sex and deceitfulness of the main character. Critics have said Linda's performance was worthy of an Academy Award and I agree wholeheartedly. She does a fantastic job!