Femme Fatale

(1991) Femme Fatale MYSTERY THRILLER

A park ranger Joseph Prince (Colin Firth) wakes up and finds that his newly married wife, Cynthia (Lisa Zane) has left just left him leaving him with nothing more than small note. To relieve his sorrows he then seeks comfort by moving and then staying with his long time friend, Elijah (Billy Zane) and we find out that they are both painters and artists for a long time, and that Joseph's wife went up and left him after 3 days of marriage. It is during then he finds more things about his wife he knew nothing about like he thought he was married to a Cynthia Baker but her actual name is Mara Sade.

It's interesting at first. A naive park ranger (Colin Firth) marries a pretty, mysterious woman (Lisa Zane) he's only known for a short time. They seem to be happy, then she disappears without warning. He searches for her and, after a few dead ends, stumbles upon some of her abused childhood and sleazy recent past, which may include criminal activity. And then, it seems the filmmakers didn't know what to do with the story. The beginning, while not as suspenseful as it sounds, is at least watchable. Then it ceases to be interesting or even make much sense. And the ending is so lame, so dull, and so devoid of any excitement or intelligence, you'll think the screenwriters didn't know what to do with it and got bored trying. What a sorry waste of a good idea!

This movie is intriguing only because Colin Firth is in it. It is one of his earlier films so he still has a baby fat face, but he also has that charming accent...so, not a total waste of time. He is the only reason I stuck it out.

Movie has thin plot that probably could have been a good, had the characters not been so superficial. Colin has all his usual passion, but seems out of place with the surrounding "ghosts" pretending to be actors. Really was let down by extent of the emptiness of the acting. The plot was too easy...first there are really bad men, then the bad men don't want to be bothered with the physicality's of killing someone. So they leave...what's with that? They are hit men without bullets, basically.

And I am so used to seeing Billy Zane as a really bad man that he seemed secondary if not less. Kinda spacey, and not really in the part of the film that he would have been best at, the supposed brutal sub-ending. I say sub-ending because the ending-ending was even more disappointing....turned into some warped fairy tale.

All in all, waste of time and space. Sorry Colin.

I am trying to watch all of Colin Firth's filmography. This is the first dud so far. Generally his films are intelligent, engaging and interesting. He almost always plays the same lovable character but with an amazing depth of feeling and nuance. This film was one of his earliest productions. Clearly it is an outlier. One of the truly worthless films of all time. Not because of the acting but because of the implausible and absurd plot with an equally inane script. It should be classified as a horror film. Every other actor in the film is a complete unknown. And the setting, in a Los Angeles slum, adds to the depressing ambiance. The topless model posing with a bag over her head is a clue to the pathetic, degraded tenor of this work.

Granted I'm a Colin Firth fan but I really enjoyed this movie. It has an interesting plot with unsuspecting twists and turns that keep the viewer focused until the end. Even the reviewer that said it was bad watched it all the way through.