Wonderful character development!

Some things I liked some I did not.

Charming and brutal

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

"White Sands" is a stylish thriller with numerous twists and turns and a collection of characters who frequently aren't who they appear to be. It's also a great looking and atmospheric film with stunning scenery and marvellous cinematography by Peter Menzies Jnr. The story begins as an investigation into a mystery which could involve murder and then develops into the uncovering of a great deal of corruption and even a conspiracy which may be politically motivated.When a dead body's found in the desert and Deputy Sheriff Ray Dolezal (Willem Dafoe) goes out to investigate, he isn't sure whether the dead man, who had a gun in his hand and a suitcase with $500,000 in it, had committed suicide or been murdered. Dolezal discovers that the man's name was Bob Spenser and then decides to pose as Spenser in order to continue his investigations. Dolezal rings a telephone number found on a piece of paper in Spenser's stomach during the autopsy and this leads to him arranging a meeting at a motel where he gets attacked and robbed of the money in the suitcase. The two women who attacked him then give him instructions to get in touch with Gorman Lennox (Mickey Rourke).Before he contacts Lennox, Dolezal gets abducted by an FBI agent called Greg Meeker (Samuel L Jackson) who explains that Spenser was working for him and agrees that Dolezal should carry on posing as Spenser in order to try to recover the lost money.After meeting with Lennox and his associate, Lane Bodine (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), Dolezal finds himself embroiled in a deal to buy some illegal weapons from a couple of dealers who unexpectedly demand a further $250,000 to complete the sale. Meeker is unwilling to provide the extra money and so Dolezal gets romantically involved with the wealthy and well connected Bodine as a means of getting her to raise the extra money.Further complications arise when two FBI officers from Internal Affairs pursue Dolezal because they think that he killed Spenser and stole the money and also one of Spenser's girlfriends provides Dolezal with some potentially helpful information. Furthermore, when he realises that he's become involved in an even wider conspiracy involving the CIA, he then takes an unconventional course of action which leads to what he regards as a satisfactory conclusion.This movie features a cast of top quality actors whose excellent performances are vital to its success and the pace of the action is great, especially considering the plot's many complications and unexpected developments. Ultimately, it's an extremely enjoyable and absorbing tale of a man whose boredom with his mundane life leads him to take the opportunity for some excitement by taking on a case where he soon finds that he's completely out of his depth.

I have seen this crime drama on a VHS player, in high—school—in '94, perhaps (--after I saw a photo from it in '93, in the Hungarian edition of a cinema magazine--); then, several times on TV. I must have seen it a few times. The most enjoyed was M E Mastrantonio's nude scene. She was a babe I knew as the maid Marian, Robin Hood's bride, and found her very beautiful. I was of course extremely disappointed by the supporting part given to Rourke—his role being my reason for searching and seeing this flick. WHITE SANDS is a movie about the drug traffic. Its best side is the cast—Dafoe, Mastrantonio, Rourke and the others …. Otherwise, Donaldson slapdash. This must also be the last movie where Rourke still had his youth features (--I never knew what to make of his surgical tale--). As a Rourke _completist, I had to see WHITE SANDS; and, as mentioned, did it several times. So, if you enjoy either Dafoe or Mastrantonio or Rourke or average crime dramas or are a Donaldson _completist, see it.Rourke is the actor with the most comebacks; I became a fan in '92, 17 yrs ago, and almost as soon as I became his fan I began hearing about his now countless comebacks. He came back like yearly. It started with White Sands (1992) (which came after what Rourke deemed as his most dishonoring movie, the funny and likable Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man; now if Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is a bad movie what will you tell about Wild Orchid, Fall Time, Double Team, Love in Paris, Point Blank—his truly nasty ones?); so first he came back with White Sands (1992); then, with F.T.W. (1994), Bullet (1996), Double Team (1997), The Rainmaker, Sin City …--he repeatedly came back to claim his place in Hollywood, weeping about his messed career, etc.. In '94 he claimed he was coming back—but he was still 14 yrs away from a true role. I knew each of his films from RAPE AND MARRIAGE to POINT BLANK (--except for 5 movies--), and from SHERGAR to PICTURE CLAIRE.

Pity the screenwriter who thinks high concept is merely about starting with an ending and working backwards.Pity this one in particular, saddled with a visual of a man running with a suitcase of white sand across white sands.Then pity any audience asked to watch what the screenwriter comes up with by way of a beginning and middle bit to precede the running man with the sand on the sand.(Might also be worth sparing a thought for what passes as local law enforcement in this movie, where the Deputy Sheriff vanishes without a word of explanation to his superiors -- and his superiors, even after several days, can't even arouse sufficient interest to find out where he's gone.)Puerile: a fine example of how a back-of-the-envelope script pitch can turn, if not to sand, then certainly dust.

Poor Mr. Dafoe and his penchant for doing crap low-budget movies with incredible acting. In fact I go crazy when he does an actual decent movie because he finally gets the respect he deserves but this is not very often so I'm usually just shaking my head in disapproval. Like this for instance, all the actors/actresses delivered quite well but the plot was so shaky that it didn't add up to anything in the end. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was incredible and reminded me once again why she can still nail a movie role here and there even though she's past her prime in Hollywood standards. Samuel Jackson's talents were wasted here along with Maura Tierney's and a few others. There's no real sense of having these big name celebrities if they're just going to be playing average roles. I did like how it worked out after all was said and done but the plot and script made no sense at times and the motivation wasn't there. Mickey Rourke was decent for his role and this was probably one of his last real works before he got all weird and slipped into drugs and depression. It's an okay watch but I guarantee you've already seen it done much better in actually good films that this took off of.Final Watch:Movies: Would've been an utter waste.DVD Purchase: Do not want to see this again.Rental: Possibly if you're serving a long sentence and have borrowed every other film from the prison library.