You won't be disappointed!

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Blistering performances.

I saw this movie when it first came out on video and remember enjoying it. I'm not a fan of music movies, romance or slow dramas but I recently sought this out again to remind myself what had caught my imagination all those 27 years ago.What a smack in the face this viewing turned out to be. The acting is nothing short of breathtaking with the three leads exuding tension by the bucket-load. Jeff Bridges says little but boy do you feel his pain, hurt, shame and anger every time the camera settles on his face. Beau also brings a career best performance as the put upon brother who doesn't quite have the talent of his womanising sibling. Enter Ms Pfeiffer as Suzie Diamond, a singer they hire to boost their booking potential, and - slowly but surely - all hell is let loose. When Ms Pfeiffer sings 'Makin Whoopee' I found my heart got lodged in my throat. If there is a sexier performance on screen - fully clothed - please tell me what it is.Considering nobody's life is at stake, no mad axe man is on the loose and it's a musical tale of troubled romance and unfulfilled ambition, it's about the most excitement you can have on your sofa with your clothes on.If you've never seen this and you like pleasant surprises, I recommend you give it a viewing. I'm still wondering how such a work of excellence could manage a score of under 7.0.

Brothers Jack (Jeff Bridges) and Frank Baker (Beau Bridges) are pianists who play together in a lounge act. Frank is the responsible family man while Jack is a drunken loner who has only an old dog and a little neighborhood girl as friends. Work is drying up and Frank wants to audition for a singer. Susie Diamond (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a former escort. They soon become a highly sought after act. However she awaken many buried feelings in the sibling relationship.Michelle Pfeiffer is terrific. Her singing isn't that bad and she oozes sexuality. The movie is also hilarious at times. It is the brotherly relationship of both the actors and the characters that is truly engaging. The plot is fairly straight forward. The relationships make this movie.

I can still well remember the reaction that my coworker Bruce had after seeing "The Fabulous Baker Boys" on its opening day in October 1989. A later-shift worker, Bruce had caught a morning showing of the film, and that afternoon tried to get across to us, through red-faced giggles, just how hot Michelle Pfeiffer had been while singing "Makin' Whoopee." Well, it's taken me a full 22 years to catch up with this picture, but now that I have, I can finally see what all the, uh, whoopty-do was about. And yet, strangely, that by-now classic scene, with la Pfeiffer warbling and writhing atop the piano, strikes this viewer--who thinks that ANYTHING Michelle Pfeiffer does is ultrasexy--as merely more of the same. Even her "frumpy" Selena Kyle in "Batman Returns" and dressed-down, depressed waitress in "Frankie and Johnny" were, to these eyes, stunning; is it just me, or is Michelle Pfeiffer kinda good looking? To quote an old Little Richard song, more closely associated with the actress Jayne Mansfield, "the girl can't help it."Anyway, in the film in question, we meet a pair of brothers, Frank and Jack Baker (played, respectively, by Beau and Jeff Bridges), who have been doing their double-piano act professionally together for over 15 years. Though obviously hugely talented, their schmaltzy act has remained static for all that time...not that the hotel lounge and tiki bar audiences they routinely play in front of seem to notice. Older brother Frank, a happily married family man, seems content to let things go as they have been, but Jack, a chain-smoking, morose womanizer, is obviously quite unhappy; we later see that his dream is to be a jazz pianist playing more improvisatory fare. Hoping to shake up their act a bit, the team decides to hire a female singer, and after auditioning 37 dismal prospects--possibly the film's single funniest scene; cutie pie Jennifer Tilly's rendition of "Candy Man" is a hoot--finally selects a beautiful young woman whose only previous entertaining experience had been in an escort agency. She is Susie Diamond, a woman as tough, bright, priceless, multifaceted and hardheaded as her name suggests, played, of course, by our Michelle. Susie's advent, naturally, causes major changes in both the brothers' relationship and in the act itself...."The Fabulous Baker Boys" is very much a three-person story, but the film's stars have such excellent chemistry together that the viewer never minds at all. The film has a wonderfully mournful, jazzy soundtrack, courtesy of Dave Grusin, and writer/director Steve Kloves has done a fine job in both departments. His picture looks sleek and shiny, and though set in the city of Seattle, never, strangely enough, gives us a single shot of that darn Space Needle, to its credit. The film contains many memorable scenes; I love the steamy one in which Jack gives Susie a New Year's Eve back massage, the one in which Jack and Susie have it out in the street after she quits the team, and the one in which the Bakers effortlessly pound out "You're Sixteen" in Frank's garage. The acting from all three principals is of course first rate, although the picture is an especial success for Pfeiffer, who not only looks stunning and gives a deservedly Oscar-nominated performance (ultimately "losing" to Jessica Tandy's career-capper Oscar for "Driving Miss Daisy"), but also gets to demonstrate what a nice way she has with a torch song, as well. During the course of the film, the viewer is treated to the awesome spectacle of this phenomenally beautiful woman warbling such standards as "More Than You Know," "Ten Cents a Dance," "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," "The Look of Love," "My Funny Valentine," "Feelings" and, of course, "Makin' Whoopee," and she really is better than good. In a picture where all the elements come together deliciously, Michelle's supersexy singing is the yummy icing on the cake. Indeed, I find myself getting a bit red faced and giggly, a la my old work buddy Bruce, just thinking about it....

If only to see this movie for one musical number, it is worth it: Michelle Pfeiffer Red evening gown Black piano New Year's Eve "Makin' Woopie"Michelle is a great compliment to the FBB's act, and she steals all the fun scenes in which she appears: The audition (this is where Jennifer Tilley makes her big screen debut) Their first performance, when she drops all the note cards and the boys start performing by themselves, until she catches up. And of course, the New year's Eve performance that had the entire audience transfixed. And don't forget, she sang all of her songs herself.