People are voting emotionally.

Admirable film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is one of those films that lets you fill in the blanks and causes you to concentrate on each scene so as not to miss a nuance or clue. I found that the second viewing was more than twice as entertaining! I have now seen it four times; each time very enjoyable. Sean Bean was an unknown to me when I first saw the film, but has now become just about my favorite actorThe Polish element? Melanie's character is half Polish, and, as well, the band slated to play in Sting's club has an accident so the Cracow Jazz Ensemble (or some such), all Poles, steps in instead, among which is Andrej, a sympathetic band manager, the only one who speaks English. Andrej is destined to play a critical role in the film, but rather than provide a spoiler here, see the film to understand what this means. Violence plays a large part in the proceedings, as is obvious from the above description. This is a well-plotted film that put Mike Figgis on the map. Doesn't hurt that he not only wrote and directed it, but also composed the music for it, an effectively moody jazz score.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

Not much to say that wasn't said below, but I guess I need ten lines. Kudos to the cinematographer photographing the setting, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. This film was near the height of Melanie Griffith's career, and I have to say that the short, reddish, hairstyle is not particularly flattering to her. But it is always nice to hear her soft dulcet voice, musically feminine, even when she's being tough. Sting's acting was just fine, which makes me think that it isn't that hard, since so many non-actors are able to do decent work at it. I am unfamiliar with Sean Bean, who seemed to be the main character. I found this film to be okay, but nothing really to write home about.

I always make it a point to see every movie involving jazz, mainly to see how they mess it up, and to see if there's some good music in the thing. This movie starred a man whom I consider to be worst jazz singer in the history of the world, Sting, and thank God he doesn't sing a note in the whole flick. He does try to make some noise on the acoustic bass, and shows that he should stick to electric bass and rock music. There's a horrible English band with one of the worst tenor sax players I've ever heard, honking away at both the club and the "American Week" party. It sounded like they were trying to sound bad on purpose, and the Maitre'D is shown in one scene trying to tell them to quiet down! The Polish Jazz Band sounded better, with an excellent sax player, but they played some terrible "free jazz" piece in the last scene that made me want to vomit. The whole Polish angle of the story seemed out of place, and the look of the movie was too glitzy to qualify it as film noir. Sting acted okay, but looks too scrawny to be a tough, English club owner.

Mike Figgis interests me. He's made three films that I consider quite worthwhile: "Timecode," "Innocence," and "Liebstraum."The others aren't bad, just not worth the energy if you consider them as films. But I don't.I consider them visual backdrop for his music. He's sometimes a musician first and a filmmaker second. There are other filmmakers who score their own movies, but this guy:— is actually pretty darn good jazz musician— has a musical imagination which sometimes you can seeThis makes even this ordinary event interesting in a way. Here's the story: Sting plays a jazz club owner threatened by an oafish American played by Tommy Lee. Two creatures caught up in the wake are a janitor working for Sting and a prostitute working for Jones. Not much happens visually. Not much happens storywise or even characterwise.And the thing has been criticized for poor editing. But look more closely and see that the editing has the timing of the jazz riffs that often accompany the scenes and in any case defines the chunking metrics of space we see.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.