Carla Gugino has certainly been a successful actress, with a diverse filmography in everything from family fare to erotic thrillers. She has somehow managed to be Harriet Nelson one day, Sharon Stone the next, then Donna Reed, then Eva Green – and was completely natural in all those roles. As successful as she was, I don’t know what kept her from being an even bigger star. As you can tell, I am a fan.
I am also a fan of this film, which I have often described as the most entertaining film nobody ever heard of. (OK, possibly excepting Kiss Kiss Bang Bang). As far as I’m concerned, it has it all: wisecracking buddy cops, philosophical crooks, hidden motivations, wild plot twists, gratuitous nudity, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, humor, and Carla Gugino’s breasts. Did I mention gratuitous lesbian porn that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie? It’s the ultimate recipe for a guilty pleasure film of the 80s or 90s, and that kinda happens to be custom designed for my tastes. Hell, Escoffier himself could not create a more perfect recipe. OK, I’m gushing.
And I rhapsodized about the film at even more embarrassing length in my review.
Enough of my bullshitting. He-e-e-e-re’s Carla:
Your review says the film is hard to find but actually, it is available for free on Amazon Prime. I watched it last night. I enjoyed it, but I think they missed the chance to make a really, really good film by not featuring the buddy/cops team of Rickman & Thompson a lot more than they did. They were awesome together. There just wasn’t enough of them. Also, they should not have set it in New Orleans, the accents were just too hard to understand, especially during the frequent rapid dialogue parts of the movie.
Yeah, also, ReelGood a handy site to check availability at.
I was OK with the accents. It is difficult to resist setting films in New Orleans because that city has a unique look and feel to it.
Although I really like the film., I agree with you completely on the focus. More of Rickman and Emma would have been most welcome. How did they ever persuade those two charming geniuses to appear in this unheralded project? And given the miracle that they pulled off that coup, how did they not make better use of the opportunity? I joked about the entertaining gratuitous nudity, but in reality, I would gladly have traded the completely irrelevant lesbian porn for more cop banter. (And a better look at the Gugino nudity.)
(I wrote that review long ago – maybe 15-20 years. Things have changed. Thanks to services like Netflix and Hulu, a lot of forgotten treasures are being brought back near the front burner. I’m almost finished binge-watching Arli$$ in 1080hd, and until recently, it was almost impossible to find in any quality. I will probably buy a couple months of Paramount + to binge-watch the original Hawaii Five-O. Now I’m hoping that somebody will load up my favorite 1970s series, Harry O.)