To me, this movie is perfection.

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Last Embrace" deserves its bad reviews. Imitation of Alfred Hitchcock requires more than respect and deep appreciation. The Miklos Rozsa score does sometimes intrude even though he often wrote film noir scores and a famous score for Mr. Hitchcock that the director did not like. Sometimes the score works extraordinarily well. Well, this is not a Hitchcock film but still, I like this movie. It imitates but also foreshadows director Demme's later great terror oriented mysteries.Mr. Demme is not mechanical or rigid in his use of Hitchcock devices and themes. This film narrative engages one on its own terms.The casting is particularly effective. The late Janet Margolin enriches the film and counts in part for my high score.Roy Scheider, as always, has immense presence Locations in New York encase a time when the city looked particularly rundown and that somehow defines an effective iconography though I have no idea why. This movie deserves closer analysis than this but others probably could do that more effectively than I can at the moment. I very much appreciate the review here by Dorian Tenore-Bartilucci.

Disappointingly lacklustre thriller stars Roy Scheider as an investigator targeted for death by a mysterious assailant. Janet Margolin plays the student who helps Scheider unravel the mystery. Frequently referred to as 'Hitchcockian' don't let that promise of quality fool you into thinking The Last Embrace is anywhere near the same level as a good Hitchcock movie because it isn't. Film is humourless, the performances are unmemorable & the whole thing just never catches fire in the way that distinguishes the truly gripping thriller. Miklos Rozsa's derivative Hitch-inspired score also gets tiresome pretty darn quick. I was going to give The Last Embrace three stars but seeing as it manages one exciting sequence in a climax set at Niagara Falls it can have four.

Many films are called "Hitchcockian", usually because they merely have a twisty, psychologically-motivated plot. But Jonathon Demme's 'Last Embrace' is far more than that, as much a piece of homage as Peter Jackson's recent 'King Kong' remake was to its predecessor. The natures of the characters, and the style of acting, dialogue and music all resemble Hitchcock's own work. A number of elements even pay more direct tribute: there's a shower scene (a la 'Psycho', albeit less bloody), while the scene in the tower, and the ambiguous heroine who isn't what she seems, bring 'Vertigo' to mind. The ending, in fact, resembles aspects of both the start and end of that latter film, while the use of an American landmark (the Niagra Falls) also recalls the use of Mount Rushmore to similar effect in the conclusion of 'North by Northwest'. But for those of us who don't in fact adore Hitchcock, and who find his movies stiff, badly acted and contrived, is a carbon copy such a welcome thought? In fact, Demme, a director I often think of as clunky, proves himself well up to the art of sympathetic pastiche, and I actually found this movie a little more engrossing than many of Hitchcock's own, although the plot is still holey and the overall feeling is that of an early 1960s movie, unusually well done, rather than a real late 1970s film. You'll probably enjoy it if you're more partial to Hitchcock than I am.

But Jonathan Demme deserves some credit. After having read many of the earlier reviews, however, I tend to agree that a lot of the theme is convoluted, and even the untrained eye will see familiar, much too familiar cinematography.If one thinks of "Niagara", "Vertigo" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much", you will have a pastiche of ideas similar to this film.Roy Scheider is very good, and underplays his role as a CIA/secret agent. Janet Margolin is attractive, but there is way too much melodrama when they first meet; too scripted. John Glover portrays an elitist professor, there are some interesting scenes at Princeton University. The shooting at the bell tower is similar to "Vertigo", right down to the winding staircase.There is an interesting back story about the Jewish immigrants in New York, and David Margulies portrays a Rabbi who deciphers Aramaic messages. Perhaps this part of the story could have been more central, so we would not have wound up with a Hitchcock copycat film.That aside, there are some unique camera shots, the backdrop of Niagara Falls is an interesting choice, and if you are at all interested in Demme's work, this film is worth viewing.