A cautionary tale concerning wife-swapping: your fellow swapper could turn out to be a sociopath who wants to frame you for murder and to steal your wife for keeps. The dilemma for the filmmakers -- scriptwriter Matthew Chapman and director Alan J. Pakula -- is how to make the premise plausible and meaningful and yet retain sympathy for the hero. Second dilemma: how to preserve the specter of a diabolically clever villain and at the same time move the plot forward without recourse to his incredible oversights and blunders. In the first case they manage to retain sympathy, despite the presence of Kevin Kline in the role (Forest Whitaker makes a nice contribution as a soft-spoken private investigator); and they manage in the second case to preserve the diabolical villainy, thanks very much to the presence of Kevin Spacey. The more difficult thing to do in both cases goes undone. Pakula's painstaking, lingering, loitering direction hopes to persuade us that he has considered the whole matter very carefully and soberly and would certainly have noticed if there were a plot hole, much less several of them, large enough to drive a herd of elephants through. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Rebecca Miller. (1992) — Duncan Shepherd
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