I've found that if I somehow leave the room for food or a break, the film probably isn't really very good. Good or better keep me glued. I never left my seat during Mulholland Falls and from the opening sequences with the four LA cops in hats riding up sunny 1950's Hollywood Hills in a big black convertible, I was hooked.
Hooked especially by a galvanizing, snappy performance by Nick Nolte as Hoover, head of his squad of four, a man of action before words, a man who simmers and glares and loves with passion: it's a performance that somehow should have been given more attention at the time of the film's release, a cops and crime film which somehow didn't match the zeitgeist of its period, lost in the shuffle.
Almost every noir mystery past 1949 is a retread of some sort (Chinatown being a major exception),but what makes Mulholland Falls work is not the plot but the heady collection of dedicated supporting actors whether Melanie Griffith as a quietly restrained wife of a cop, or Chazz Palminteri, the wry right hand partner who talks about his psychiatrist without hesitation.
The mystery deals with corruption in high places, of course, and John Malkovich and Treat Williams are good supports for Nolte to play against--but it's Nolte's show from start to finish and his intensity nails it!
Hooked especially by a galvanizing, snappy performance by Nick Nolte as Hoover, head of his squad of four, a man of action before words, a man who simmers and glares and loves with passion: it's a performance that somehow should have been given more attention at the time of the film's release, a cops and crime film which somehow didn't match the zeitgeist of its period, lost in the shuffle.
Almost every noir mystery past 1949 is a retread of some sort (Chinatown being a major exception),but what makes Mulholland Falls work is not the plot but the heady collection of dedicated supporting actors whether Melanie Griffith as a quietly restrained wife of a cop, or Chazz Palminteri, the wry right hand partner who talks about his psychiatrist without hesitation.
The mystery deals with corruption in high places, of course, and John Malkovich and Treat Williams are good supports for Nolte to play against--but it's Nolte's show from start to finish and his intensity nails it!