Back into James M. Cain territory: the decent average joe turned indecent and aberrant, and cherchez la femme. That isn't to say it's outdated -- not so long as men continue to make fools of themselves over women. But the old form needs a little something more than modern dress to spiff it up: some unusual plot interest, unusual character interest, unusual visual interest. Any one of these, not all three, not even two. The plot of this one, though it serves its purpose for the duration, does not bear looking back upon. (E.g., would a scrupulously honest cop agree on the spur of the moment to help his Lady Love hide a dead body just because the justifiable homicide was committed with an unregistered gun? More importantly, could someone else plan on his doing so?) Sufficient interest, however, is provided by the performance of Ed Harris, one of our more credible impersonators of a Real Man (and not simply because of his undisguised thinning hair). Unlike such contemporary pretenders as Seagal and Schwarzenegger, he is not one who inspires great confidence -- or its not very distant extension, great boredom. In short, he's just what you want in the hero of a hard-boiled thriller. With Madeleine Stowe, Benecio Del Toro, Charles Dance; directed by John Bailey. (1994) — Duncan Shepherd
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