Highly Overrated But Still Good

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Blistering performances.

Blistering performances.

I have trouble believing this movie has so many good user reviews here, because for me it was rather poor. I understand that it's from a play, "Insider's Price", and its origins show. I usually like Forest Whitaker, the hit-man, but I think he was badly directed here. He overacts, a lot, and his narration was atrocious as in exaggerated and almost ludicrous. It wasn't even a real diary, it was a phone conversation and as such it worked even less. I get our hit-man isn't the sharpest tool in the block but the writing seemed weak with some lousy lines. The target, Sherilyn Fenn's, although looking fine, was arguably worse acting-wise, because her reactions often weren't believable or seemed emotionally fake. You see James Belushi and Sharon Stone in the credits, but they only have 5-minute cameos. Belushi's part could have easily been cut. Sharon Stone's was a bit more interesting but any actress could have done it.The main part of the film was a confrontation between the hit-man and the target in her apartment. From the way it was shot, the confined space and the acting, it really felt theatrical there but not in a good way. I suppose some scenes would have elicited laughter in front of a audience (such as the pulling back and forth of the curtains or the cake scene), but here, they seemed out of place. I was more often puzzled by reactions than gripped by tension as to her fate and that of the baby. Also, very little action here, it was all very talkative. This film seemed very forgettable fare to me.Rating: 3 out of 10 (poor)

Good 80's flik-a classic actors flik before conglomerate studios, w/ original music + real artists on soundtrack. 1 of the last b4 cookie-cutter movies became the norm and original stories/good actors, real film-making, still got promo. Whitaker and Fenn are excellent. Her best work and his emergence as Oscar winner. A shame that 2days flix need a kid starring to get a greenlight. I hate to say it, but I miss the 'studio system'- professional writers,directors,crew,timelines,productions, from top to bottom. Actors were labor like everybody else. Most of them were from stage or were multi-faceted entertainers. Where are modern Elvis, Sammy Davis, T. Curtis, L. Ball, Gleason, M.Rooney, D.Kaye, G.Kelly, Bogart,Cagney, etc.?

Forrest Whittaker is superb in this taut thriller, in which he plays a burned-out hit man who is planning his last job. The job, however, is a dirty one even by his standards: he is ordered to murder the wife of a shady businessman and the wife's baby (whom, claims the businessman, is not his child, and a crack baby to boot). Sherilyn Fenn plays the wife masterfully, exhibiting a wide range of emotion from fear to desperation to joy to confusion, all within just a few minutes on camera. James Belushi plays a cynical police detective, while Sharon Stone (in her first post-"Basic Instinct" role) has a small role as Sherilyn's kooky sister, aptly named "Kiki". Instead of taking out Sherilyn and her baby, Whittaker bonds with her and, eventually, turns the tables on her s.o.b. husband. The movie was filmed in Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Ohio, and Sharon, PA, where the producer's studio was located at the time (1991). These industrial locales add a dark mood to this even darker drama, one that is vastly underrated.

When I was a High School student, I learned that nothing can modify its status of repose or movement without a cause. Recalling that I tried understand why a killer suddenly repent of "all his sins" and become a "good guy"... Allegedly, the manichaeism approach of this film is the only reason that a man looking to a mother holding her baby (an allusion of the medieval portrait of the Holy Virgin?) make up his mind so quickly... I made this short beginning in order to justify a consideration about the plot: Well, the plot is very singular and leads us to several ways until the surprising dead end. The actors are well conducted by the hands of the director apprehending our attention until the final.