Wonderful character development!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

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

The only reason I rented this thing: it was the only item in the mystery section of my local video store I hadn't seen. Imagine a bunch of bananas. You choose the most appetizing looking one to begin, then the next most appetizing and so forth. When you get to the last banana, you now have in your hand the one you rejected every single time before, plus it's less fresh now. Do you even want to eat it? The movie is like the last banana. Having passed it over in favor of dozens of other choices over a period of years, I finally watched it and wished I hadn't. Ignore the ad copy. It promises suspense, cat-and-mouse intrigue, but don't all movies of this type make such claims and don't most largely fail to deliver? Well, this one delivers like Canada Post on Xmas, ie. never. There is no suspense, no character interest or visual interest whatsoever, just a shadowy murky look that a film school dropout might mistake for film noir if he wasn't paying very close attention. Uma looks great, of course, but she was 17 when she did this, her first feature, and lacked the experience necessary to light up the screen the way she did just a few years later in Henry and June and Pulp Fiction. Her character is indolent, passive and boring - a mixture of victim and victimizer but not a very rich or interesting mix. Her actions fail to shock when she commits crimes nor is she in any way sympathetic when she is herself in jeopardy. It's a thriller devoid of thrills. Recommended only for insomniacs looking for a quick cure.

This film is about a young and attractive woman who lures men and then rob them. She finds her own life is in danger when she ends up in the opposite end of the game.Even considering that "Kiss Daddy Goodnight" was made twenty years ago, it still seemed more like a college film student effort. The camera work is terrible. There is no consideration into how to make the camera angles and presentation of scenes more interesting. Lighting is terrible. Scenes are either very dark or are poorly lit. I refer to a specific scene where William and Laura talk by the entrance of Laura's apartment. The source of lighting takes no consideration into where light should come from. They just use spotlight to shine onto the two characters' faces. The end result is rather laughable.The plot could have been promising, but it is not engagingly told. There is simply no suspense or thrill. To sum up, "Kiss Daddy Goodnight" is rather disappointing. If it was not for Uma Thurman, this film would have found no viewers at all.

I picked this up very, very cheap in a bargain bin somewhere (I won't mention the name of the store, but I'm sure you'll figure it out anyway), deciding to give it a chance because of the early appearances of Uma Thurman and Steve Buscemi, as well as one of the few appearances of Paul (older brother of Matt and Kevin) Dillon. I won't call it out-and-out terrible, but it was not, by far, one of the better movies of its type.This somewhat confused thriller features the lovely and very young Uma Thurman as Laura, a woman who takes on multiple identities and seduces older, wealthy men, drugs them, and robs them. Among her gentlemen is William Tilden (Paul Richards), a cultured man with a pet rabbit who buys her gifts in exchange for her (non-sexual) company. Unfortunately, it appears that Tilden has more than just an innocent fondness for Laura, and the relationship leads him to fuel more than a little of the conflict seen in this movie.Meanwhile, a younger friend of Laura's, Sid (Paul Dillon), is down on his luck and she does her best to look out after him. Neither Sid nor Laura are exactly upstanding citizens, but their relationship is honest, for the most part.Additionally, Steve Buscemi has a small scene as the sleazebag guitarist Johnny, for whom Sid spends much of the first part of the film searching.While this movie does remain in my collection due to its relative obscurity and strange plot movements, it is not well done on any end of the spectrum except, perhaps, for the performances of Thurman and Richards, who work quite well together. The lighting is substandard and there have been numerous complaints listed on IMDb about the sound quality. This is definitely not a movie for everyone, although it does appear that some folks enjoy it. Rent or purchase this one at your own risk.

This truly obscure neo-noir from 1988 is memorable as Uma Thurman's first starring role and also has a bit part from Steve Buscemi. Quentin Tarantino must have seen it since he cast both of them in "Pulp Fiction." The DVD retails at WalMart for $1.00, which is about what it's worth. "Kiss Daddy Goodbye" has an intriguing storyline but is so low-budget as to be literally unwatchable: the lighting is poor, the photography amateurish, and night scenes are literally invisible. On the plus side the eighteen-year old Uma oozes sex appeal and a sleazy sort of glamour which must have attracted Tarantino to her, and there are some gritty, realistic performances, particularly from Buscemi. The movie was produced with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the West German Kunstministerium, another example of taxpayers' money going to waste.