Tense thriller mixes legal suspense, gender-role debate and technology-based action, with mixed results. In fact, its all good except for the computer stuff. The firm which the film revolves around is Digicom (a bit too made-up sounding for my liking), a computer technology firm. We're told at the beginning that the firm is developing a new technology, which will be used as collateral in the upcoming merger. They develop a sort of virtual reality file-scanning system, which doesn't make file-searching any easier whatsoever, but is more like an unnecessary toy for show - but it plays a part late in the film that, for me, was my only complaint about the film. All of a sudden, we go into the machine, and it just sticks out like a sore thumb as being totally wrong for this movie - we're in a sci-fi movie all of a sudden. Plus, it was totally unnecessary. In the scene straight after, the character reports what they discovered in the machine, so it was more for show than relevance - but it ends up hurting the consistency of the film for those five minutes.
This film suffers a little from the same thing the Sandra Bullock vehicle The Net suffers from - in hindsight, now that we've all just accepted the internet and computers as a helpful part of our daily existence, all these old fears we had seem slightly silly. Its a bit like looking back at those Y2K scares and thinking how ridiculous we were to be so afraid. Unlike The Net, though, technology-phobia is only in the subplot of this film. Its more about what happens between Michael Douglas and Demi Moore late one night at the office, and what happens afterwards.
Its very wordy - so be prepared for that. A couple of early dialogue scenes should have been rewritten with the dialogue absent, and told with a couple of thoughtful extended shots. But maybe i only think that because i've just gotten into Antonioni. He really makes this movie look reliant on words.
The sex scene is so well choreographed as to feed an entire movie's worth of plot. Its sexy - true, Demi Moore radiates sex appeal like you wouldn't believe - its an incredible scene to watch. But its stict mechanics are also very necessary for the rest of the plot. Its one of the most necessary and justified sex scenes i've ever seen.
Overall, it works. Its a tense thriller with two really incredible performances from the leads. I don't think its an essential movie, and its not particularly pleasant, if that's what you're after, but if you want a good tense thriller (which many of us do), this is worth a rental. Plus, we feel for Michael Douglas and want things to turn out good for him. So in that way, i think it deserves a workmanlike 7/10.
This film suffers a little from the same thing the Sandra Bullock vehicle The Net suffers from - in hindsight, now that we've all just accepted the internet and computers as a helpful part of our daily existence, all these old fears we had seem slightly silly. Its a bit like looking back at those Y2K scares and thinking how ridiculous we were to be so afraid. Unlike The Net, though, technology-phobia is only in the subplot of this film. Its more about what happens between Michael Douglas and Demi Moore late one night at the office, and what happens afterwards.
Its very wordy - so be prepared for that. A couple of early dialogue scenes should have been rewritten with the dialogue absent, and told with a couple of thoughtful extended shots. But maybe i only think that because i've just gotten into Antonioni. He really makes this movie look reliant on words.
The sex scene is so well choreographed as to feed an entire movie's worth of plot. Its sexy - true, Demi Moore radiates sex appeal like you wouldn't believe - its an incredible scene to watch. But its stict mechanics are also very necessary for the rest of the plot. Its one of the most necessary and justified sex scenes i've ever seen.
Overall, it works. Its a tense thriller with two really incredible performances from the leads. I don't think its an essential movie, and its not particularly pleasant, if that's what you're after, but if you want a good tense thriller (which many of us do), this is worth a rental. Plus, we feel for Michael Douglas and want things to turn out good for him. So in that way, i think it deserves a workmanlike 7/10.