Bob Rafelson's next-generation film noir re-establishes, to a noteworthy degree, the connection of the genre to reality and realism. It is not an hommage. It is not an imitation. It is not a hand-me-down. It is a legitimate continuation in a contemporary setting. And if it has lost something in the way of identifiable visual style (it retains, through the occasional tilted camera, some distantly Expressionistic diagonals), that's a small loss. A loss only of grip on apron strings or coattails. The filmmaker comes to this business with clearer loyalty to the specific characters than to some dimly defined and overriding genre. The characters may be types, but they are not stereotypes. (Nor, more tonily, archetypes.) Their situation is smoothly laid out. Their environment -- balmy Miami and vicinity -- is traversed with easy familiarity, and without pause for touristic rubbernecking. They are, simply put, believable people embroiled in believable relationships and believable plot developments, with believable complications and consequences. The greatest benefit of this tightened connection to real life is that the spectator cannot know with any degree of confidence which way the storyline is going to go. It's mildly amazing how much freshness is thereby injected into what boils down in synopsis into a conventional "caper film." With Jack Nicholson, Stephen Dorff, Judy Davis, Michael Caine, Jennifer Lopez. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.