Jade (1995) & Color Of Night (1994) As a tireless, toiling video buyer in the l990's, we can't overestimate the seismic effect that 1992's "Basic Instinct" had on movie audiences........and subsequently video store customers.......
A whole new genre was born......the overheated, blood 'n semen soaked sex thriller......
Seems like the country couldn't get enough of 'em and our video store shelves overflowed with cheapo direct-to-video knockoffs......(with titles like 'Indecent Obsession', 'Unnatural Attraction', 'Instinctive Perversion', 'Lethal Legality', Sexual Scissoring' and so on.....)
But let us confine ourselves to the big guns here.....where the major studios and high profile filmmakers stepped up to the plate to make glossy sex thrillers to match "Basic Instinct"'s blend of bed hopping, plot twists and bursts of explosive ultra-violence.
"Jade" features a script by Mr. Basic Instinct himself, Joe Eszterhaus, so you know right off that hot sex and dead bodies will follow right after the opening credits......
The very first thing you need in a sex thriller is a worthy Object Of Lust for the male stars to salivate over. That job falls to the smoky voiced, legs-for-days Linda Fiorentino, playing the trophy wife of a high powered defense attorney (Chazz Palminteri) whose assistant District Attorney best friend (David Caruso) still seriously lusts for Fiorentino......(who wouldn't).
This shaky romantic triangle shakes even more when Fiorentino becomes the prime suspect in the gory slaying of a prominent power broker.......and it's revealed her sexual exploits also extend to the corrupt California governor (Richard Crenna).
Hot 'n bothered yet?
James Horner's score heaves heavily through it all and director William Friedkin seems less interested in the sex than in topping his own 'French Connection' car chase. To do this, he tries a novel approach, staging a 3 mile an hour chase through a crowded Chinatown parade. Well, if nothing else, it does unfold like something you haven't seen before........
A final twist reveals the murderer, if anyone still cares. And other than the slo-mo car chase and gazing upon Linda Fiorentino's superstructure, it's a 2 star (**) snooze.
For all the huffing and puffing in sex thrillers, their directors rarely displayed the sheer brass balls of 'Basic Instinct's Paul Verhoven when he let a gasping cinema audience take a peek at Sharon Stone's exposed crotch.
But Richard Rush, the director of "Color Of Night" tries to come close, making the entire movie a deliriously over the top nutso experience. The craziness factor get amped up to ever ascending heights........to the point where the movie more than earned the derision and unintentional laughs it received.
Gotta love the kickoff scene.......where Bruce Willis plays a New York shrink who helplessly watches one of his troubled patients take a swan dive out of his high rise office window......splat.
Moving to L.A. to heal his wounded psyche, Willis's best friend and fellow shrink (Sottt Bakula) promptly gets himself stabbed to death by one of the wack-a-doodles in his group therapy sessions.
But which wack-a-doodle dood it? Hoping to figure that out, Willis takes over supervising the loopy group, much to the loud, overacting displeasure of the investigating detective, (Ruben Blades, braying every line for the hearing impaired.)
In the midst of his hapless sleuthing, Willis survives numerous attempts on his life (a rattlesnake left in his mailbox and later on, a car dropped on him from the top of parking garage,) Undeterred, he presses on, his tensions alleviated by the arrival of a mystery babe (Jane March), who periodically pops in to the proceedings for long bouts of boffin' with Bruce.
As ludicrous as all this is, we can't help admitting a fondness for Richard Rush's particular style of over-the-top storytelling, which we loved in his films like "Getting Straight", "Freebie And The Bean" and "The Stunt Man".
But he's fighting two major enemies here.......first, the imbecilic script whose BIG TWIST is so blatant, obvious and stupid, you can spot it in the first 10 minutes of the film. Second, the woeful miscasting of Jane March as the film's primary Object Of Lust.
March is easily one of the strangest creatures ever to wander into a sex thriller. She looks about 80 pounds soaking wet, with the overbite of a 13 year old who hasn't yet made that first visit to the orthodontist. And her very limited acting skills aren't anywhere close to meeting the peculiar demands the plot puts on her character.
In other words, unwanted, uncalled for hilarity erupts......in all the wrong moments.
Then again, that's part of what makes this flagrantly ridiculous movie so entertaining and watchable....(unlike 'Jade').
We're honestly sorry to say this was Richard Rush's last directing credit......whatever you may say about his films, this guy knew how to show you a good time at the movies. And certainly his sex thriller looks like nobody's else's sex thriller except Richard Rush's.
For the swan song of this unique, distinctive filmmaker, 3 stars (***).....we only wish he'd kept on going, making one crazy movie after another.......(as long as he'd stay clear of Jane March....)
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