Femme Fatale Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)November 11th, 2002
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Brian DePalma's work is pretty inconsistent, especially for someone who is nearly a filmmaking household name. His last two movies (8mm and the Razzie-nominated Mission to Mars) were both ambitious undertakings and spectacularly exasperating cinematic experiences that emphasized style over substance, though the director certainly has wowed us plenty in the past with Hitchcock re-imaginings like Dressed to Kill (Psycho) and Obsession (Vertigo).
Femme Fatale is a combination of both types of his films. It certainly has as much flair as you're likely to see from DePalma, but it also has the old-school action that has made people refer to him as the American Hitchcock. This time, instead of pinching material from Hitch, DePalma takes a stab at updating Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, replacing Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and Antonio Banderas.
Hey, hold your venom, pal! I don't cast these films - I just review them. While it's true that DePalma's two leads are hardly a pair of thespians, I defy anyone to explain how they're any worse than Mark Wahlberg trying to do Cary Grant in The Truth About Charlie. Still, we're talking about a major motion picture that features turns from a supermodel and a guy whose control of the English language is about as successful as the Cincinnati Bengals.
Fatale starts, after a scene depicting a nude Laure Ash (Romijn-Stamos, Rollerball) watching Indemnity in her hotel room, with a riveting opening, just like 8mm. The setting is the Cannes Film Festival (the premiere of Régis Wargnier's East-West, to be specific) and Laure is, along with a handful of cohorts, about to pull off one extremely memorable diamond heist. I won't go into the specifics, but it involves two tuxedo-clad black men, a woman whose dress leaves nothing to the imagination, a bathroom, hot lesbian action, ventilation ducts and, of course, a double-cross gone wrong.
Now here's where it gets tricky to review without revealing too many of Fatale's twists and turns. Laure gets away and, through means that are almost ridiculously unbelievable, is able to acquire a different identity. Her alter-ego (Lily) meets an American businessman named Bruce Hewitt Watts (Peter Coyote, A Walk to Remember), and then the film flashes forward seven years, where Lily is married to Bruce, who is now the U.S. Ambassador to France. Still terrified she'll be spotted by her jewel heist partners, Lily keeps an extremely low profile - so low, in fact, that nobody knows what she looks like. That's how we meet Nicolas Bardo (Banderas, Ballistic), a photographer (a la Travolta in DePalma's Blow Out) who gets an assignment to snap a photo of the reclusive Lily. He does, and all hell breaks loose. On a side note, the guy giving him the assignment is John Stamos, though we only hear his voice.
Fatale is probably an example of style over substance, but that's okay when something is this pleasing to the eye. Speaking of pleasing to the eye, Romijn-Stamos is pretty impressive here. I don't know if she's any good or not, but she sure is fun to watch. And I don't mean that in a sexual way, although that's quite fun, as well. What I do know is Fatale's success is entirely in her hands, as the fetching actress is the star here (regardless of what the credits tell you, Banderas is only a supporting character here). There's nothing subtle about her acting in Fatale, but I don't think that really matters too much. Laure/Lily is supposed to be sexy and dangerous, and she accomplishes both fairly well.
After leading the audience around by the bit for an hour and a half, DePalma (he's also penned the script - his first screenwriting credit since the ill-advised Raising Cain) takes a misstep that is going to piss off a lot of viewers. I kind of dug it, but I also liked the cancelled girls club, too. At any rate, fans of DePalma's trademark long shots (and I mean long) won't be disappointed. Neither will horny guys, as Romijn-Stamos provides enough boner-worthy moments to allow the typical North American male to suffer through at least four more Sweet Home Alabamas.
1:50 - R for strong sexuality, violence and language
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