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Trust Weighted
Good
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66Trust Points
Wick's Review
Summary - Good 3.0
Glamorous L.A. noir from back when real men wore fedoras makes Mulholland Falls a high calorie treat. A sultry Jennifer Connolly cavorting with John Malkovich and Nick Nolte makes it a guilty pleasure. Cheesy dialogue makes it a bit tough to swallow.
Should this luxo crime thriller be better? Much.
Acting - Very Good 3.5
Jennifer Connelly and John Malkovich give the movie’s best performances. Connelly’s retro glamour makes her an ideal 1940s pinup, while Malkovich can essay an intelligent creep in his sleep.
The rest are fair to middling, including Nick Nolte as a cardboard LAPD Detective, with Chazz Palminteri, Michael Madsen and Chris Penn as his meathead squad. Melanie Griffith adds nothing as Nolte’s wife.
Several notables play bit parts.
- Treat Williams as a nefarious Colonel.
- Kyle Chandler as his loyal aide.
- Daniel Baldwin as a domineering FBI agent.
- Andrew McCarthy as a scared witness.
- Aaron Neville as the world’s best Nite Spot Singer
- Bruce Dern as a police chief who sees no evil in his own department.
- Rob Lowe as a prettyboy mobster.
Then there’s legendary stuntman Buddy Joe Hooker as the DC-3 Pilot.
Male Stars - Good 3.0
Female Stars - Great 4.0
Female Costars - OK 2.5
Male Costars - Great 4.0
Film - Good 3.0
Filmed at Warner Hollywood Studios in Hollywood, this very Hollywood film about L.A. looks marvelous. If only its screenplay were more than just barely OK.
Lots of rock-em, sock-em action from stunt Coordinator Buddy Joe Hooker and his 25 stunt players.
Direction - Very Good 3.5
Dialogue - Barely OK 2.0
Cheesy dialogue on top of a good - albeit contrived - story.Music - Very Good 3.5
Aaron Neville bumps it up to VG.Visuals - Perfect 5.0
Legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler gives the film a gorgeous patina of old-time L.A. beauty. His DP credit over Jennifer Connolly's lingerie-clad body is worth framing. What does Nolte's character drive? A "'49 Buick Roadmaster":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_Roadmaster#1949-1953 convertible. Four VentiPorts baby!Edge - Sordid 3.1
Jennifer Connelly – at her bustiest – gets fondled by John Malkovich and Nick Nolte, making Mulholland Falls somewhat of a prurient classic. It also makes it clear that moviestars are different than the rest of us, at least in terms of on-the-job experiences.
Sex Erotic 3.5
Violence Brutal 3.1
Rudeness Profane 2.8
Reality - Surreal 2.5
The movie jams a bogus atomic weapons story into a more grounded LAPD yarn. It doesn’t come close to ringing true, unlike the L.A. neo-noir movies to which it’s compared – Chinatown and L.A. Confidential.