Movies-TV

God-Awful

This is the film that caused me to give up on Brian De Palma completely. He has disappointed me with half-good movies (Carlito's Way, The Untouchables, Raising Cain) for some time. I didn't think anything could be worse than "Wise Guys" but he certainly managed new lows with Femme Fatale.I'm not one who thinks Rebecca Romijn-Stamos can't act. She does a pretty good job on her TV show and has turned in some nice guest performances. I think she's better at comedy though and while there are certainly ways to inject Films Noir with wry humor any attempts at doing so in Fatale failed miserably. And the huge flaws in Femme Fatale only highlight what shortcomings Romizjn-Stamos does have.Some of the unbelievable developments in the film can be explained by the fact that the main body of the movie is a dream sequence like Romijn-Stamos being dropped from several stories through a glass ceiling and landing on a pile of cushiony insulation material that just happens to be there. But her just happening (at least I think it was coincidence. The film is very short on clarity) to obtain the new identity of a woman who is her exact double and ending up being found by friends or family (again unclear) and left alone in the woman's apartment is as hard to accept as Antonio Bandera's come-and-go accent. I never did figure out if he was playing an American or not.Certainly the doppleganger bit could be an accepted premise on which the film could have been predicated. Instead it was a contrivance as phony and unacceptable as that handy pile of insulation. There was one element that was the hardest to swallow in a film that was full of them. How is it that in a film that features a European leading man and was largely filmed in Europe with a lead actress who must have spent considerable time there during her modeling days was said actress allowed to very clearly call the beverage EX-presso?I laughed almost as hard at that gaffe as I did when, in The Principle, Jim Belushi pronounced the title word as "prince-a-bul".If anyone has ever wondered how a commercially successful director has gotten five "Razzie" nominations for "Worst Director" a viewing of Femme Fatale will explain all.

Amazing ratings here

Most has already been said: poor screenplay, unrealistic, annoying, avoid it! I am however more than surprised by the average rating which is currently 7.2 out of 10. I have been in the cinema with some friends and all of them found the film either average or bad. Are only De Palma fans voting here? I gave it 1 point to bring down the average a bit (although the film may well be worth 2-3 points but certainly not more).

Femme Fatale

Brian DePalma has a delightfully wicked sense of irony, and a twisted sense of humor which is sadly lacking and sorely missed in today's overly self-serious pop culture. This makes watching Femme Fatale feel fresh and exciting, even though such irony was a prime staple of movies in the '70's -- a decade largely regarded as DePalma's prime. That is when he directed Carrie, Phantom of the Paradise & Dressed to Kill, among others.

The Femme Fatale in this movie is a diamond thief/con-artist named Laure who assumes the identity of another woman to escape some partners she double crossed. She is wonderfully evil, and great fun to watch as she manipulates the men around her using her body and her tears in order to get what she wants.

But there is a great deal more of this movie to love. Brian DePalma delights in playing tricks with cinematic conventions both narrative and visual. His love for unusual camera angles is still present in this film, which delivers a plot that twists and turns as seductively as Laure's strip tease. I picked up clues as to one major plot twist early on, hoping I would be wrong. I was partly right, DePalma took something that would have left me groaning in lesser hands and twisted it so that I was laughing with delight as the climax approached.

DePalma has also mellowed out a bit with this movie. Much of his prior films would feature gallons of bright red blood and gruesome, creative, deaths of beautiful women. This film keeps much of the fake blood away from the women, cutting away from any of their more potentially gruesome death scenes.

This movie is highly rescommended to those who enjoy being surprised. Watch it. You may think you have it figured out, but there is no way anyone could guess the ending. As the credits start to roll, you will realise that you were in the hands of a cinematic master with an impish sense of humor.

Theatrically Challenging? Please!!!

Well, this movie tries to transport you between different times and end up confusing you. To some, this is called theatrical challenge; to me, however, it's a plain dis-organization. The participating actors are talented, but the disinteresting nature of the story makes me to give this movie THREE THUMBS DOWN.

A convulated mess that all falls into place in the most unexpected way

De Palma pulls this off like only De Palma can. Three quarters of the way through this flik I was still trying to decide whether or not I was enjoying it. By the time it was over I new I loved it. Except for the miscasting of Banderas (De Palma's only mistake) the cast is great. A heist gone wrong movie with enough twist and turns to boggle the most avid movie goers mind. Hints o'plenty keep you interested 'till the unexpected ending. After reading some of the other comments on this sight I was reluctant to see it but am thankful that I did. 7.5 out of 10

What is the french word for (...)?

Im glad of one thing after seeing this movie. Im glad the manager of the theater was nice enough to give my $8.00 back when i walked out. I must say i enjoyed the first 10 minutes of the movie. A few people got shot, there was an excellent lesbian make-out scene and a lot of nice (...) shots... in the first 10 minutes. After that it was filled with all the charm of a second rate French Film, brought down even more with a "Pretending to be Gay" performance from Antonio Banderas. This movie is (...), in french subtitles. If you ever rent this movie, watch the first 10 minutes, and be kind enough to rewind it so the next person doesnt miss the only good part.

The most enjoyable piece of trash I've seen in a while...

I saw this movie in ultra-conservative Orange County, California. About one third of the audience (myself included) laughed in most of the right places, and just sat back and enjoyed the bodies of the gorgeous actresses and actors. The next third didn't know if it was politically correct or proper for themselves to do so, and the last third wouldn't admit they have an ass when they are sitting on it. Be that as it may, I always enjoy Antonio Banderas in anything, and Rebecca can actually act (if she can make it through this with a straight face, she can make it through anything). If you don't take things too seriously, then you will enjoy this film...but I do think that Brian DePalma has spent a wee bit too much time in France...oh, well, what the hell...:-) Fun for adults, don't bring the kids.

Did you get it?

SPOILER ALERT!!!!! I'm surprised that so many here hated this movie. Did you get the joke? It wasn't supposed to be real... that was the point! Another person mentioned that someone was naked after being thrown off the bridge. Think about the scene again and you'll understand what really happened.A few years ago, I went back and looked at the reviews for "Marnie" all the big newspapers and magazines hated the movie. Now it's considered a classic. I think ten years from now this movie will be dug up and become a modern film classic.If you love movies, you'll love this. It's sexy and smart.

Bad - Worse - Femme Fatale

Spoiler Alert!What a pity. The movie started out rather promising, the heist sequence was beautifully done, but once it was over, the flick went downhill fast. The whole part up until Laure falls asleep in the bathtub just annoyed the hell out of me. Laure needs to get out of the country and thus needs a passport, so she meets with this other woman (I think her name was Veronica) to get one. Rancine, one of her fellow gangsters, is trying to find out where Laure hid their loot, so he's tailing her. So far - so good. But what follows is just utterly unbelievable. Laure, trying to hide from a photographer, walks in on a funeral that takes place in a church. She sits down and takes a look at a scrap of paper Veronica gave her. On it is the address where she will get her new passport. Somehow, Racine can see this address, although he's outside the church with his binoculars and Laure holds the paper rather close to her body and looks at it for about 3 seconds. I could have lived with that, though it doesn't make any sense, but it got worse... Laure gets noticed by the other attendants of the funeral service, since she just happens to look like the mother of the child that is being buried, a woman named Lily. Lily's parents take Laure for Lily, as Lily apparently did not attend her own daughters funeral - rrrright. Laure flees the scene and takes a cab to the hotel where she's supposed to get her new passport, Lily's parents hot on her tail. However, Racine got to the hotel long before Laure (how he did that is quite beyond me, as he only got 40 seconds head start) and is waiting for Laure. In the ensuing fight, Laure gets thrown off a balcony and falls onto some carpets. There, Lily's parents find her an take her in, apparently still unable to tell her from their real daughter.At this point, I couldn't take it anymore. What was Brian DePalma thinking? He couldn't honestly expect anyone to take this plot seriously. He basically kissed all logic goodbye. Some of those things are just laughably stupid, others are physically impossible.As for the rest of the film - it's a run-of-mill thriller, with plot twists that aren't all that surprising and a rather boring striptease/sex scene.Someone said that the movie was "playing with the concept of fate and reality" - well, I have to agree. At least if "playing with the concept of fate" means using a totally illogical plot just because you want the story to take a certain direction, and "playing with the concept of reality" means using a crudely done "it was all a dream" explanation for most of what happens in the movie.My advice: Steer well clear of this stinker. 2/10

Not for everyone.

"Femme Fatale" is a hard film to review.Technically, everything is okay. De Palma's direction is right on the money, Stamos puts in a good performance, and the look and feel is sleek and elegant.But there's something missing, and it's something I can't quite put my finger on. The movie left me feeling empty...like a glass filled only half full. I was impressed by what I saw but nothing really pleased me.The story meanders like a snake, writhing from one plot detail to the next in a slim, classy fashion.But the problem is, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to feel. The film left me with no emotion...it was stale and cold.Fans of the conventional thriller will most likely find this to be not their cup of tea. I'd even go so far as to think most of them will be pretty bored.It was good taking De Palma's class in, but the movie held no meaning to me. The plot wasn't anything that left an impression and I was unclear of the film's message.I wouldn't recommend this as a good thriller (if it even was one), but I wouldn't suggest tossing it aside, either.It didn't deserve an "A" and I couldn't find anything to give it a "B", so...Grade: C

Only one scene worth watching.

One great striptease scene, but even then you won't see any full flesh.
Rent it if you have to watch don't buy it.

Worse than 'Glitter'

I cannot stress the magnitude of stupidity than encompasses this movie. In serious contention for the worst movie of all time. The unbelievably predictable dialogue (you can read along from the audience), the inexplicable inability of a master thief to get away from an elderly couple in a huge city, the completely out of place statements apparently thrown in for shock value, and the complete lack of persistence of people trying to kill each other could only come to a climax in one way: you guessed it - instant nudity as a result of being thrown off a bridge. I only wish I was joking.

Big Disappointment

Going into this movie as a Brian DePalma fan, I was completely disappointed. While I gave it a few points for style, it seems like it was written by a five year old with a subscription to Hustler magazine. I cannot understand why Ebert fawned all over this movie. Upon leaving, the mood of the audience was just below that of an open-casket funeral.

Watch it in Black and White

This is a good 'un. With it's intricate plot and Hitchcock-ian detail/score I was thinking that it could possibly even be a BRILLIANT film if it was shot in black and white. So I turned off the color on my TV set and what I had now was a modern film noir masterpiece. Seriously. This is an incredible film. Do as I did. You'll only appreciate it even more.

The acting is sloppy and the dialogue approach seems off. I would have said that Anthonio Banderas was miscast but, in truth, his character was written a bit too comical/campy at times. That's just my two cents. Get it now.

All style--no substance

Big disappointment from de Palma. Lovely to look at but ultimately empty. Absurdly poor performances from all the acting "talent". Don't see it--in fact don't wait for it to come out on video/DVD either. A colossal waste of time and money.

One of the year's best!

FEMME FATALE, Brian De Palma's latest exercise in the erotic thriller world, is an intoxicating, utterly sexy masterpiece. This is a great example of filmmaking on the highest level, slinky yet elegant, challenging yet fun.I found myself immensely pleased with the ever-expanding acting talent of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (who played a sinister villain the terrific X-MEN adaptation). Romijn-Stamos is absolutely perfect in the title role of Laure Ash, an expert con artist: icy, gorgeous, and alluring. Antonio Banderas also gives a very strong performance as Nicolas Bardo, the retired photographer who is unwillingly caught in Laure's web of crime.If you are looking for a great time at the movies, look no further than FEMME FATALE. When watching it, don't take it seriously. Just have fun and enjoy one of the most entertaining films of the year.

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos glows in a classy thriller

Brian De Palma hits us with a classy and sexy thriller in film-noir style.Rebecca Romijn-Stamos glows on the screen as the perfect femme fatale with her stunning looks and Antonio Banderas does a really good performance in his role as a semi-retired Spanish paparazzi photographer.The camera work is very good and the editing flow is perfect. It is really wonderful to be served a movie that does not follow the usual thriller paths. De Palma gives us new experiences and i love it. The movie is actually a masterpiece down to every detail except: The cop out end in deja vu style a la "Lola Rennt" and "Sliding Doors" could have been much better. I would definitely have rated Femme Fatale as a 9 or 10 out of 10 with a better end.

Quality Rating: B

A jewel heist goes horribly wrong resulting in betrayal and back stabbing. De Palms'a best work in a long time! Film features stunning cinematography, extremely photogenic (and better then expected) leads, a twisty script full of surprises and a breath taking first forty minutes. The film does however always seem to be walking a tight rope from being serious and unintentionally funny.

stunning, clever thriller

I have read mixed reviews of this thriller by one of the best directors of our time, Brian De Palma. If you are a fan of his work then I can't see where you could go wrong here. This film has all the elements that make a spellbinding story: interesting lead characters, horrifying villians, and enough material to keep you guessing until the very end. I left the theater thinking about this movie, never misunderstanding the plot, but pondering over the details the director/writer carefully infused into the narrative. The music is beautiful, as well as the locales, then again how can you go wrong with Paris? The movie opens at a quick pace at the Cannes film festival and doesn't let up until the conclusion. Several scenes are slightly drawn out, but this builds character relationships and the story never drags.
This is the directors's best in years!

tries to hard to be deep and ultimately is just boring.

Femme Fatale is a film that was highly recommended to me by at least three people.I had looked forward to seeing it but alas, this was not a movie that I got any enjoyment from. In fact I found it quite boring. This is a movie with almost no dialogue for the first part of the film. And that would have been fine if anything these characters had done had made any sense or been remotely enjoyable to watch.I actually found this movie quite annoying on many levels. It's tough to do a movie with so little talking if there's no sense of intrigue to go along with that. Watching this movie, it was all I could do to keep my eyelids from closing. I was not drawn in at all.I think Femme Fatale just tried to hard. It was trying to hard to be artsy and different. It was trying to hard to have intrigue. It was trying WAY to hard to be sexy and erotic. So it failed in all those respects.The movie acts like it's building the viewer up. My question is-to what? I hung in there thinking maybe eventually my patience would be rewarded. The "twist" when it did come was boring and mostly unoriginal. Femme doesn't end with a bang but with a sputter. There are actually a few interesting scenes in this movie but they are so few and far between that it's not even memorable when they do come. There's also some beautiful scenery and a European flavor to the whole film which I quite liked but that was all. The movie, to me had no depth at all. It tried so hard to be showy and different it ultimately wound up becoming a cliché.The funny thing is, as a friend and I discussed-despite the high fashion look to the film, it had the POTENTIAL to be a b movie kind of thing. And we wish it had been. Because, as a b movie it wouldn't have tried so darn hard and would probably have been a really good campy psychological thriller.