If Philip Kaufman has long been overrated (trace the blame to the identically initialed Pauline Kael), this cheesy feminist thriller, fully worthy of the Lifetime Channel, might remedy the problem all by itself. Though intriguing in its initial set-up and directed with care throughout, it takes a suicidal high dive from the lofty pomposities of Quills, Kaufman's preceding one. Our ballsy heroine (Ashley Judd, always sinking to the bottom of her vocal range, trawling for gravitas) has just been promoted to Homicide Inspector on the S.F.P.D., when the first case to fall in her lap proves to be the serial murder of her former bedmates, their bodies turning up with regularity whenever she blacks out on Cabernet. Could she be her own prime suspect? For all the perfunctory interest in psychology -- her sessions with a police therapist, her passion for casual and rough sex, her violent temper, her childhood trauma over the deaths of her parents -- the film knows only one motivation: to astonish the audience at all costs. The audience is liable to laugh in its face. Samuel L. Jackson, Andy Garcia, David Strathairn. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
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