Month: September 2021

It’s hard to talk about this movie without revealing some of the twists and turns the plot takes. Don Cheadle is a Muslim, Sudanese-American who joins up with a terrorist organization and is thus tracked down by FBI agent Guy Pearce. It follows an unsurprisingly common thread for the early 2000s. I enjoy anything Don Cheadle is in and he carries this film on his back. Pearce manages a fairly decent portrayal as American law enforcement, giving Cheadle something to play against. Jeff Daniels and Archie Punjabi add quality in roles that could have been beefed up to the film’s betterment.

I haven’t watched a Barbara Stanwyck film in awhile and this was a pretty good one to revise my love. Babs is a news writer who against her better judgment falls in love and marries good-natured cop Sterling Hayden. She truly loves her husband but she hates the dull monotony that is the life of a suburban housewife in the 1950s. She instead directs her energy and ambition toward moving her husband up the ranks in his division. Raymond Burr is shrewd as the police inspector who sees behind her ruse and their chemistry in the film is truly excellent.

There’s a whole lot of unevenness in the story here that makes what could have been a really entertaining film about a mother-daughter con artist team into an overly-long mess with only occasional moments of good. The story takes too long to get started and some of the con parts are drawn out for way too long, while others are blink and you miss it. Sigourney Weaver is underutilized as the mother part of the duo and Jennifer Love Hewitt, squeezed into any number of mini dresses, is shoehorned into a love story with Jason Lee. I do really enjoy the power and energy Hewitt brings to her role and Weaver gets to show her comedic side. There is also a great mix of supporting characters played by a good number of well-known actors.

Because all descriptions of this film first mention the Lipstick Killer, I went in thinking this was a classic film noir. Instead, it’s a behind the scenes look at power struggles within a news organization whose editors are competing to be the first to scoop the identity of the killer. It’s a cynical look at the news, where even the supposed hero of the story, TV anchorman Dana Andrews, is willing to cheat on his fiancé and use her as bait in order to break the story. Ida Lupino, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders, and James Craig battle for power within the organization, all under the machinations of the new corporation owner Vincent Price.