Okay, first thing I'd like to say is that having your protagonist smoke a lot, making shallow and obvious references to "Double Indemnity" and having a Femme Fatale does not instantly make a film a modern Noir. Not by a long way.
As it happens I've been watching a lot of classic and modern Noirs lately and this film really doesn't fit in with any of those. I've watched Chinatown, L.A.Confidential, Grifters, The Spanish Prisoner and probably most similar Body Heat, all recently. They all come across as having enough Noir elements to justify the tag and having watched those mixed in with the likes of The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, Scarlet Street and Sunset Blvd (all over the last month or so), I feel like I'm in a good position to make that judgement . This film just doesn't fit in with those (and not in a good way either). It's not the only film wrongly labelled as Modern Noir IMHO, I'd say "Bound" is too, but at least that film was half decent and didn't seem to be making a pitch for that tag.
Okay, so the Femme Fatale in this film is also the protagonist. That's fine. But she is so transparent and so obviously a total bitch that she's not doing a very good job of it all. Certainly not compared to Femme Fatales from the classic Noirs. It's not that Fiorentino's performance is bad (or that of any others in the film) it's just the whole story is so terrible and unbelievable the best acting performance in the world couldn't save it.
Fortunatly for her character all the men she is surround with (aside from a lawyer she only phones) are so mind numbingly stupid, naive and gullible that she can still control them to her ends. The trouble with that is it's not terribly believable. The worst of these is her new boyfriend Mike, who bring stupidity and naivety to a new level. This is made worse by the fact that we are meant to believe he is a competent claims adjuster for an insurance company. He must cost the company millions! The worst problem with this is that you are left with absolutely no sympathy for any of the male characters in the film and in some cases you kind of feel they deserve what they get for being so dumb. For me that makes for a bad film.
This film came across to me like a film that was trying to be a modern noir, more specifically a modern version of Double Indemnity, but no one involved had ever seen that film or any other noirs and so were just trying to base it all on vague plot summaries and the well known aspects of Noir (smoking, femme fatals, murder). It wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.
What does surprise me is how high this films rating is. I can only presume it's because of Fiorentino. She did a good job with what she was given and she was sexy. Not sexy enough to make you think for even the slightest moment you'd be suckered in by her. But certainly sexy enough to get a reaction in your pants. But then all the sex scenes in this film are very much modern, non-noir ideas. Which leads me to my penultimate thought - if the film wasn't down as being a modern noir and was just some 90's seduction flick would it be rated anywhere near as high? My final thought however is on the music. This film has a terrible cheap sounding soundtrack that doesn't really work with the film. Again it's like they wanted something that sounded a bit Noir, but didn't actually want to put much effort into it. That really sums up the whole film.
As it happens I've been watching a lot of classic and modern Noirs lately and this film really doesn't fit in with any of those. I've watched Chinatown, L.A.Confidential, Grifters, The Spanish Prisoner and probably most similar Body Heat, all recently. They all come across as having enough Noir elements to justify the tag and having watched those mixed in with the likes of The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, Scarlet Street and Sunset Blvd (all over the last month or so), I feel like I'm in a good position to make that judgement . This film just doesn't fit in with those (and not in a good way either). It's not the only film wrongly labelled as Modern Noir IMHO, I'd say "Bound" is too, but at least that film was half decent and didn't seem to be making a pitch for that tag.
Okay, so the Femme Fatale in this film is also the protagonist. That's fine. But she is so transparent and so obviously a total bitch that she's not doing a very good job of it all. Certainly not compared to Femme Fatales from the classic Noirs. It's not that Fiorentino's performance is bad (or that of any others in the film) it's just the whole story is so terrible and unbelievable the best acting performance in the world couldn't save it.
Fortunatly for her character all the men she is surround with (aside from a lawyer she only phones) are so mind numbingly stupid, naive and gullible that she can still control them to her ends. The trouble with that is it's not terribly believable. The worst of these is her new boyfriend Mike, who bring stupidity and naivety to a new level. This is made worse by the fact that we are meant to believe he is a competent claims adjuster for an insurance company. He must cost the company millions! The worst problem with this is that you are left with absolutely no sympathy for any of the male characters in the film and in some cases you kind of feel they deserve what they get for being so dumb. For me that makes for a bad film.
This film came across to me like a film that was trying to be a modern noir, more specifically a modern version of Double Indemnity, but no one involved had ever seen that film or any other noirs and so were just trying to base it all on vague plot summaries and the well known aspects of Noir (smoking, femme fatals, murder). It wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.
What does surprise me is how high this films rating is. I can only presume it's because of Fiorentino. She did a good job with what she was given and she was sexy. Not sexy enough to make you think for even the slightest moment you'd be suckered in by her. But certainly sexy enough to get a reaction in your pants. But then all the sex scenes in this film are very much modern, non-noir ideas. Which leads me to my penultimate thought - if the film wasn't down as being a modern noir and was just some 90's seduction flick would it be rated anywhere near as high? My final thought however is on the music. This film has a terrible cheap sounding soundtrack that doesn't really work with the film. Again it's like they wanted something that sounded a bit Noir, but didn't actually want to put much effort into it. That really sums up the whole film.