The Last Seduction **** (1994, Linda Fiorentino, Bill Pullman, Peter Berg) – Classic Movie Review 1616

Director John Dahl’s mesmerising, ultra-stylish 1994 retro neo-film noir thriller is the third part of his marvellous trilogy following his critically acclaimed successes with Kill Me Again (1989) and Red Rock West (1993).

Writer Steve Barancik’s screenplay centres on a devious, smart and smouldering crook called Bridget Gregory, played by Linda Fiorentino, a particularly slippery and ferocious femme fatale who exploits all her sex appeal to manipulate the weaker sex – men! She talks her doctor husband Clay (Bill Pullman) into sell medicinal cocaine to some drug dealers, from whom he gets almost $1million, but then she runs off with the money. 

She hides out undercover in a mid-American hick small town, where she starts a new life. Pullman has to pay off a dangerous loan shark so he sends detectives after her to get his money back. Bridget meets and seduces naive local insurance valuer Mike Swale (Peter Berg), whom she snares into her scheme to get Pullman off her case and return to New York to enjoy spending the cash.

It’s a very good plot and the extremely immoral storyline is wittily scripted with a nice line in black comic tone interspersing the violent action and steamy scenes of sex. Dahl shakes off any plotting implausibilities with a carefree post-modern shrug, making fun of the genre’s conventions while at the same time treating them with serious respect and pushing them to their logical limits in a way never quite dreamed of in film noir’s heyday the 40s.

The three stars give highly convincing and engaging performances, though it’s totally the admirable Forentino’s film, with the actress relishing a dream of a part. She’s never done anything better. The equally admirable Dahl keeps his nerve to the story’s inevitably bitter end. He went on to make the excellent Rounders and Road Kill.

The Last Seduction II followed in 1999, with Joan Severance and Con O’Neill, directed by Terry Marcel.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1616

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