Femme Fatale *** (2002, Rebecca Romijn, Antonio Banderas, Peter Coyote) – Classic Movie Review 2926

After a $10million diamond heist from an exhibition during the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, femme fatale Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) double-crosses her crook partners. She goes on the run, assumes the identity of Lily, a woman who commits suicide, and starts a new life in America as a respectable married French woman with a rich power husband named Watts (Peter Coyote) and a high-profile political life. Watts becomes US Ambassador in France, where the couple go to live.

There she meets an ex-paparazzo photographer called Nicolas Bardo (Antonio Banderas), who is mesmerised by her but she needs to avoid. Of course it isn’t long before her secret past as a con-woman comes back to haunt her.

After very mixed reviews in the US, it bombed at the box office and went straight to video in the UK, but this controversial 2002 thriller is an edgy, seductive, twisty erotic thriller from expert director Brian De Palma.

Along with the committed performances of Banderas, Romijn-Stamos and Coyote, the cinematography by Thierry Arbogast and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score are the movie’s very considerable main assets.

Also in the cast are Gregg Henry, Fiona Curzon, Eva Darlan, Jean-Marie Fran and John Stamos.

Rated R for strong sexuality, violence and language.

Rebecca Romijn was married to John Stamos (19 September 1998 – 1 March 2005, but they divorced and she married Jerry O’Connell on 14 July 2007. They have two children.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2926

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com