Movies
Jade
Screenwriter Joe (Showgirls) Eszterhas follows his standard procedure of hiding a rudimentary, amateurish, nonsensical narrative behind a diversionary smokescreen of salaciousness: a flayed corpse, a collection of sex-partner pubic hair, an envelope of blackmail photos of the Governor of California in flagrante delicto, a beachfront love nest equipped with hidden video cameras, a bedside drawerful of marital aids, etc. (The use of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in the background underscores the primal forces afoot in today's America.) So depleted by now is his bag of tricks that the movie barely stretches to ninety minutes, despite the endlessly protracted car chase (ski-jumping down the hills of San Francisco, plowing through a Chinatown parade), plus the brief warm-up of a brakeless single-car runaway, by which director William Friedkin fattens the highlight reel from his French Connection and To Live and Die in L.A. With David Caruso, Linda Fiorentino, Chazz Palminteri, Michael Biehn, Richard Crenna. 1995.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: R