The Joseph Hayes stage thriller about the middle-class home invaded by three murderous thugs. Except the happy home of William Wyler's version (1955) is now the broken home of Michael Cimino's, with a consequent loss of emotional focus. It's Anthony Hopkins's tortured, philandering man of the family vs. Mickey Rourke's intellectually arrogant hoodlum (he's completed the Johns Hopkins Creative Writing course, and has letters of support from two major American authors -- Mailer, presumably, but who would be the second?), and it's not much of a choice. Lindsay Crouse makes good company as the Southern-drawling, command-barking cop on the case, but she loses some credibility in the ludicrously overscaled action of the climax. With Mimi Rogers and Kelly Lynch. (1990) — Duncan Shepherd
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