Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

We're in Florida, so inevitably this is a tale of a guy who makes the mistake of getting involved with a woman who is unhappily married to a rich dude. The sap in question is homicide detective Kyle Bodine, played by Ed Harris.  Given his job it is very predictable that (a) the husband will get killed (b) Kyle will be implicated in the killing, and (c) he will be investigating the crime.   Sure enough all this comes to pass, with the important wrinkle that it is Kyle's junior partner Lamar (Benicio del Toro) who does an ace job of working out what happened.  It turns out there is a good reason for his excellent police work in this particular case, which we'll get to. The femme fatale is Rachel (Madeleine Stowe) who is married to nasty Charles Dance, who himself is having a steamy affair with one of his employees, and who has a habit of knocking Rachel around.   Kyle falls for Rachel in a big way, and considering the scene where she undresses before jumping ...

In this second film by Rose Glass, who wrote and directed it, there are two main characters: Lou (played by Kristen Stewart) who is gay and works at her dad's gym, and Jackie (Katy O'Brian), who is a bisexual bodybuilder just arrived in the town en route to a contest in Las Vegas. Lou and Jackie hit it off straightaway, launching into a torrid love affair.   There's only one fly in the ointment: Lou's brother-in-law Dave is a scumbag with anger management issues who beats up his wife from time to time.  When he hospitalises her, Jackie, who has her own anger management issues (maybe exacerbated by the steroids Lou has introduced her to) goes around to his house and kills him in an uncontrolled fit of rage. Although Lou despised Dave she's not exactly thrilled at this turn of events, not least because she and Jackie now need to dispose of the body. At this point complications rapidly ensue.  These mainly arise from the fact that Lou's father (Ed Harris, with very...

I was a bit shocked when this film ended up only third in the 'Screen Drafts John Grisham Super Draft', behind 'The Pelican Brief' and 'The Client'.  I was further taken aback to find out this film only gets 76% on Rotten Tomatoes. I have always thought of this as an excellent adaptation of what is surely Grisham's best novel. Rewatching it though I can see that those critics who complained about its length (two and a half hours!) and its slow pace might well have had a point.  And it's fair to say that the director Sydney Pollack might not be the best at handling the thriller elements, especially towards the end. The basic setup is great: a bright law student Mitch (Tom Cruise, at 31 just about young enough to play the part) is tempted to join a small law firm in Memphis only to discover that they are connected to a Mafia mob in Chicago.   Any lawyer trying to leave the firm is murdered, and just to make things worse the FBI are investigating and want M...

I've seen this  Pulitzer Prize winning play by David Mamet (about real estate salesmen) twice in the theatre, including its initial run at the National Theatre when it blew me away.   This adaptation (by Mamet himself) has an ensemble cast so strong that fine actors such as Ed Harris and Alan Arkin only get to play minor roles. The cast also includes Alec Baldwin who gets just the one scene, especially written by Mamet for the film, as a guy from head office trying to kick some life into the team by threatening them with the sack.  There’s also Kevin Spacey, well-cast as the office manager who is despised by all the salesmen, and  Jonathan Pryce who is terrific as a hapless customer trying to back out of his “investment”. The biggest name in the cast is Al Pacino as the smooth salesman determined to stop Jonathan Pryce from succeeding.    It’s an understated and effective performance by Pacino, and his best scene is one where he and Jack Lemmon im...