Final Analysis

A friend warned me about this film. "It's not very good" she said. What she should have said was "It's not very good, and it goes on for a long time, and Richard Gere can't change the expression on his face, and there are scenes where you say "doesn't that remind you of....?". There's not much point in discussing details, but some useful tips are revealed. (1) How do you escape from a high security prison hospital? Ans: You walk out with the visitors when they leave. (2) How do you steal/retrieve a heavy dumbbell being carried in a shopping bag by a villainess? Ans: You put her on a tram in San Francisco, with the bag dangling out, and you get in a tram going in the opposite direction, so that as the two trams pass, you just reach out and grab!! So simple. There are better ways of spending 2+ hours than watching this.

A wonderfully twisty unpredictable plot, very appealing actors and beautiful actresses, great music, tremendous suspense again and again - this is a whale of a movie.

Time and again, I was completely bowled over by the plot developments - and the climax is frankly better than any I can think of in any Hitchcock movie outside of The Man Who Knew Too Much.

I just loved it. I really disagree with the previous reviewer about the friendship between the psychiatrist and lawyer - one sees it all the time. Remember Gere is NOT the treating or testifying psychiatrist for any woman accused of any crime - and the friendship between himself and the lawyer is a very common phenomenon in criminal cases. (I've been a lawyer in quite a number of them).

Perhaps the most fascinating - because so wonderfully understated - matter is the change in Gere's morals over the course of the movie - they go to pieces as we find him lying to people, arranging for thieves to hide evidence, etc. yet it's completely believable and interesting.

I don't really understand why this film has such a low rating. Most of the movie is very good. The story, the acting and the cinematography are very good. The story also has a lot of plot twists and the acting is very good. The screenplay is quite intelligent. Only the end is a bit less good, and that's a pity, because this could have been a masterpiece. The end is a bit stupid. Phil Joanou did a good job directing this film. It's a pity this film doesn't get a higher rating on IMDb. Richard Gere, Kim Basinger and Uma Thurman do a good job too. I recommend this film. It's not a masterpiece, but it's certainly not bad.

I just watched this movie again, after having seen it twice before in 1996-97. It has held up pretty well. It steals a lot from Hitchcock (the "I had the dream again" key phrase from "Rebecca", the superficial psychoanalysis from "Marnie", the setting of the climax from "Vertigo"), but Phil Joanou's direction is farly static - until the last 20 minutes. The two leads, Gere and Basinger, do a solid but routine job in their roles; it's the secondary characters who give this film a life of its own: Eric Roberts (an outstanding performance) as the edgy husband, Uma Thurman as the patient (whose character is the only one who remains an enigma right to the end), the detective who keeps making insinuations, Gere's colleague who gets panicky when he has to testify, etc. If nothing else, Joanou shows a talent for allowing his actors to do their stuff. (**1/2)

Richard Gere and Kim Basinger reunite from 1986's mediocre "No Mercy" for this outlandish, just-as-shallow would-be murder mystery. Occasionally enjoyable, fruity concoction concerns psychiatrist Gere becoming involved with two sexy sisters who are hoping to formulate the perfect murder plot. Lots of story twists, each one more preposterous than the last, but with a slick production and a fine climax atop a lighthouse. Gere looks a bit ill-at-ease, but Basinger and Uma Thurman are both very good. Eric Roberts is eliminated early (a plus), but Keith David flounders in the hopeless role of the detective on the sisters' trail. For viewers in the requisite silly spirit, not too bad. ** from ****