When this first came out in 1980, I was about 19 years old and 'thought' it was some kind of cheesy male gigolo film, so after watching it tonight, I feel a bit silly for having such preconceptions and biases without knowing a thing about it because it's actually quite a good film. I also didn't know that Giogio Moroder did the soundtrack which is very good and adds a very gritty, haunting element to the night scenes when Richard Gere is driving alone around LA. Interesting too that Moroder wrote the music to the song 'Call Me' which Debbie Harry from Blondie wrote the lyrics and vocal melody to.
The plot was pretty good but I was hoping it was going to have a Brian De Palma kind of plot twist and that we'd find out that Lauren Hutton was in on the 'framing' and planted evidence in his apt, which I think would have been a real cool idea but she's not.
So if you're like me and thought it was some movie made for desperate chicks to ogle some dudes butt -- it's not. It's really more of a murder mystery and is worth watching.
There's some good 80's atmosphere, like the record store that has a front window display of the Police's first album. I think this movie may have really set the tone for a lot of 80's things that came after it, such as Miami Vice, because there's a scene with the shadow of the window blinds which is very 'noir' and this wasn't being done in the 1970's. Also the 'grey' paint fad that hit in the 80's when everything was getting painted grey.
The plot was pretty good but I was hoping it was going to have a Brian De Palma kind of plot twist and that we'd find out that Lauren Hutton was in on the 'framing' and planted evidence in his apt, which I think would have been a real cool idea but she's not.
So if you're like me and thought it was some movie made for desperate chicks to ogle some dudes butt -- it's not. It's really more of a murder mystery and is worth watching.
There's some good 80's atmosphere, like the record store that has a front window display of the Police's first album. I think this movie may have really set the tone for a lot of 80's things that came after it, such as Miami Vice, because there's a scene with the shadow of the window blinds which is very 'noir' and this wasn't being done in the 1970's. Also the 'grey' paint fad that hit in the 80's when everything was getting painted grey.