"Palmetto" is humid and sweaty, but it flounders around on the screen trying to convince the audience that it is a taut noir thriller. "Palmetto," about a fake kidnapping plot gone wrong, is actually aimless and pretty tame. The film isn't outright bad, exactly. Just unremarkable and forgettable.
Woody Harrelson, who is good in just about anything, nicely conveys Harry Barber's desperate attempts to keep the kidnapping plot from collapsing, but Elisabeth Shue looks like a deer caught in headlights and acts like an eleven-year-old girl trying on Mommy's clothes and acting naughty. The plot progresses with the mandatory double-crosses and revelations, but fails to make any impression except for Shue's vamping and Gina Gershon's nagging.
The final twenty minutes of the movie are downright laughable, but by then I was already bored into a state of complete disinterest. Honestly, "Palmetto" makes "Follow That Bird" look like an edgy thriller. And the only intriguing about "Palmetto" is Elisabeth Shue's wig at the end.
Woody Harrelson, who is good in just about anything, nicely conveys Harry Barber's desperate attempts to keep the kidnapping plot from collapsing, but Elisabeth Shue looks like a deer caught in headlights and acts like an eleven-year-old girl trying on Mommy's clothes and acting naughty. The plot progresses with the mandatory double-crosses and revelations, but fails to make any impression except for Shue's vamping and Gina Gershon's nagging.
The final twenty minutes of the movie are downright laughable, but by then I was already bored into a state of complete disinterest. Honestly, "Palmetto" makes "Follow That Bird" look like an edgy thriller. And the only intriguing about "Palmetto" is Elisabeth Shue's wig at the end.