Mortal Thoughts ***½ (1991, Demi Moore, Glenne Headly, Bruce Willis, John Pankow, Harvey Keitel) – Classic Movie Review 5574

Director Alan Rudolph’s tantalising 1991 movie Mortal Thoughts is a tastily cynical, ingenious, stylised neo noir thriller packed with lots of goodies, including the performances of Demi Moore as a new Jersey housewife suspected of murder, Glenne Headly as her best friend and colleague Joyce Urbanski, Bruce Willis as her best friend’s dead husband, Harvey Keitel as a suspicious cop, and John Pankow as Arthur Kellogg.

Well written by William Reilly and Claude Kerven, it delivers as an intellectual puzzle rather than an action thriller. But nevertheless, it does deliver, thanks to Rudolph’s confident handling and the bravura camerawork of cinematographer Elliot Davis.

Moore is good and tough as the hairdresser, wife and mother Cynthia Kellogg, while Keitel is rock solid in his stereotyped role as the experienced detective John Woods who is interrogating her, and the usually genial Willis (Moore’s then husband) is a revelation in an unsympathetic portrait of a drug-taking thief and rapist, James Urbanski.

Also in the cast are Billie Neal as Detective Linda Nealon, Frank Vincent, Karen Shallo, Crystal Field and Marianne Leone.

Mortal Thoughts is R rated for strong language, momentary violence and drug content.

RIP Glenne Headly (1955–2017).

Films directed by Alan Rudolph: Premonition (1972), Nightmare Circus (1974), Welcome to L A (1976), Remember My Name (1978), Roadie (1980), Endangered Species (1982), Return Engagement (1983), Songwriter (1984), Choose Me (1984), Trouble in Mind (1985), Made in Heaven (1987), The Moderns (1988), Love at Large (1990), Mortal Thoughts (1991), Equinox (1992), Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994), Afterglow (1997), Breakfast of Champions (1999), Trixie (2000), Investigating Sex (2001), The Secret Lives of Dentists (2002) and Ray Meets Helen (2017).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5574

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