The Last Seduction
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Movie Reviews of The Last Seduction
Movie Review: For The Sake Of Accuracy
Summary: 4 Stars
Actually, this movie was shot to be released to theaters but the producers got scared and let it get released on pay TV to get the money. It was later released to theaters as originally planned. It is, in fact, a pan-and-scan version of the movie. This bit of idiocy also deprived Linda Fiorentino of an Oscar as well.I would rather see it in widescreen, as it was originally shot.
Movie Review: Why the LAST Seduction?
Summary: 4 Stars
This broad is a pro with no moral sense. A manipulator with no heart or conscience. Except for the murder aspect I'd say I see her in action in my social settings every day. Good movie about a particular type of woman.Movie Review: A minor letdown
Summary: 3 Stars
Linda Fiorentino stars as the ultimate bad girl in this little thriller directed by John Dahl; Bill Pullman, JT Walsh, and Peter Berg round out the strong cast. The plot revolves around some money that Clay(Pullman), a doctor selling drugs illegally, has just made a deal for and brought home to his wife, Bridget(Fiorentino). After getting into a fight in which Clay slaps Bridget, she takes off with the money. She procedes to some small upstate town where she decides to try to hide out for a while and see what Clay knows about her whereabouts. After talking to a lawyer friend(Walsh), she weighs her options and decides to set up shop temporarily and get a job in an insurance company. While not exactly fitting into Smalltown, USA, she nonetheless finds herself being pursued by an extremely naive local-yokel by the name of Mike Swale(Berg). The two hook up for some steamy no-strings-attached sex until Mike confesses that he loves her. Bridget decides she has him in the palm of her hand and launches into a plot to rid herself of him, her husband, and anything else that stands in the way of that large sum of illegal money.
I thought the film started off well enough, but as the plot developed I found myself having a few problems with the film. First off, the Bridget character is so completely unlikable and just downright nasty that I found myself really hating her right from the opening frames of the film, which is a problem if you are basing the whole film around her. I'm all for the femme fatale thing, but I find it more effective when the woman is more cunning, subtlely seducing the unsuspecting male victim--and viewer-- into a false sense of security and then hitting you over the head with a I-didn't-see-that-coming plot twist. Bridget is hardly subtle. In fact, she doesn't use trickery to get her male victims to do what she wants, she just asks them to do stupid things and they willingly oblige. One scene in particular that really irked me is when Bridget is tracked down by this seemingly buisness-like black private eye hired by her husband. He points a gun at her and tells her to drive. She then asks him if the thing about black guys having a big, you know, is true and then asks him to whip it out so she can see for herself. He says no at first and then decides to do it if she'll shut up. That was the point in the story where I said what the...? I thought that scene was so ridiculous. Later on there is another scene that equals or surpasses that scene in the-men-behaving-stupidly theme.
I really liked Dahl's work in Red Rock West, so I felt somewhat let down by this film. A few times I thought he took shortcuts to get a particular scene to work instead of putting some more thought into it. The film does move at a strong pace and features some very good performances, but some of the problems I mentioned earlier left me disappointed. Overall, The Last Seduction was worth the rental, but defintely won't be on my buy list.
Movie Review: Very good in many ways, but not great in any
Summary: 3 Stars
The femme fatale was a staple of 1940s film noir: an unusually attractive and downright coldhearted woman who knows how to get what she wants by using her own femininity and sexuality to lure unsuspecting men into her trap. She's often the smartest character in the film, able to play everyone else like a piano, and do anything it takes for power and money. The Last Seduction recalls this great archetype and gives us a femme fatale so evil that it's just a joy to watch her operate.
Linda Fiorentino plays the woman in question, Bridget Gregory, who right off the bat steals $700,000 from her husband, Clay (Bill Pullman), who got that money from illegally selling drugs that was able to acquire as a doctor. Bridget hightails it out of New York City and ends up hiding out in a town called Beston in upstate New York, where she plans to live under an assumed name, Wendy Kroy, until things cool down and she can return to New York.
It is in Beston that she meets her patsy, a local man seeking love and affection named Mike (Peter Berg), who falls hard for "Wendy" when he meets her in a bar. Bridget uses Mike for sex, but he constantly tries to pry into her personal life, which she will have no part of. She scares him a bit when she starts talking about killing bad men for money, and when he will not relent with his quest for personal details, she pushes back on him about his secret from when he lived in Buffalo. Despite all of this, Mike cannot resist her charms, but we get the feeling that something bad is going to go down when Clay finally catches up with Bridget--that is, unless she can get to him first.
The Last Seduction was directed by John Dahl, and originally played on cable TV after being passed over by distributors. After it proved to be a great success, the film then received a theatrical release--quite an unusual scenario. At any rate, this is a very good film with some excellent characters. Bridget is the kind of character that you love to hate, because she manages to manipulate situations so well, and even though she's diabolical, you have to give her credit, because she's damn smart and she knows exactly what she's doing.
However, I make a judgment on recommending a film based on whether I would add the movie to my DVD collection, and with this film, I didn't feel any special desire to do so. It's clever, but it's not overwhelming clever. It's thrilling in parts, but I wasn't on the edge of my seat. It's funny sometimes, but my chuckles never escalated to a guffaw. And while it makes the viewer think while watching it, afterwards there isn't much reflection to be done. But if you're looking to be entertained for a couple of hours, you could do a lot worse than The Last Seduction.
Movie Review: Now Available on DVD!
Summary: 3 Stars
A nice dark little movie, where the good guys don't win and the guilty go unpunished. It is pretty unusual to have such a strong female character, it was entertaining to see a woman as tough as nails and unflinching. The male characters were considerably less developed. You are bludgeoned with the "men will do anything for sex" message - so what if that cliché happens to be true. The slight parallels to Double Indemnity are fun, but Linda Fiorentino would mop up the floor with Barbara Stanwyck. This is a stripped down, bare bones DVD. The sound is simple stereo, not that is matters because this is not an action flick.