Brian De Palma crafts a typically engaging erotic thriller, one that has a great deal of respect for film noir and femme fatales of legend (especially "Double Indemnity" and Barbara Stanwyck). Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is quite easy to watch as Laure, a sexy criminal who double crosses her partners during an elaborate robbery (all of this while the Cannes Film Festival is going on). Then she finds an opportunity to live the straight life (and the high life) for a while, until she ends up back in Paris where she's at real risk of having her past come back to haunt her. Sealing her fate is a slightly shady photographer, Nicolas (Antonio Banderas), who is tasked with snapping a picture of her.
While the script itself is not flawless, De Palma still tells a pretty entertaining story, one that holds the viewers' attention regularly. Certainly his filmmaking skill was still quite sharp at this point, especially when one considers the true highlights of the film: that aforementioned jewel robbery, and a scene in a strangers' home. These take place without much dialogue, and it just goes to show how the directors' style can carry scenes practically by itself. The exotic French setting is also a real asset to the picture.
The mostly French cast acquits itself well, with Romijn-Stamos clearly having fun playing a bad girl who knows full well how bad she is. She can really wrap guys around her finger, such as the hapless Nicolas, or Watts (a very likeable Peter Coyote), the nice-guy American ambassador to France. Gregg Henry, a semi-regular in De Palmas' films, is also solid as a strong-arm man working for the ambassador. Eriq Ebouaney has a great screen presence as the formidable criminal mastermind "Black Tie", while Thierry Fremont is amusing as a French police inspector annoyed at having to deal with Nicolas.
One of the more interesting touches occurs around 12 minutes from the end. While some viewers may be annoyed at the use of such a device / revelation, it allows for our main character to second-guess herself, and make different choices.
A must if you are a De Palma fan.
Seven out of 10.
