Burl saying hello! Ha ha, there seem to be plenty of people
who hate Brian De Palma and his movies, and I suppose there might be people who
are kind of hem-haw about them; and then there are people who really have a
thing for the beardsman’s go-for-baroque style, ha ha! I’m one of these latter
nutcases! By garr, I can say without hesitation that De Palma movies have given
me a lot of enjoyment over the years!
Fond memories include hearing my father wax rhapsodic about Phantom of the Paradise, and being
excused from chores because it was coming on afternoon television! Another time
mother spoke in hushed tones about Dressed
To Kill, a film she’d just returned from seeing with her girlfriends! Thus
was bated the De Palma hook before I even knew the man’s name, or what a movie
director did! Later I had marvelous theatrical experiences with The Untouchables, Mission Impossible, Raising
Cain, Carlito’s Way and The Black Dahlia, among others! I saw Blow Out in a big old wonderful rep
house, and that was a real treat!
Ah, De Palma! Well, though it may seem so, I’m not avoiding
talking about Passion, the movie
ostensibly under review here! Ha ha, of course there was no opportunity to see
it in a theatre, but I’ll bet it might have played pretty well in one, with the
right audience at least! The picture features Rachel McAdams, from Midnight in Paris and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows as
Christine, a blonde executive at a Berlin ad agency! Ha ha, one day she’ll wear
hamburger-sized crimson lipstick; on another she’ll dress like a diabolist! You
just never know what stylecrime this wacky woman will pull next! Her underling
is Isabelle, played by Noomi Rapace, from Prometheus
and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows!
A fellow who seems to have an erotic connection to both is Dirk, played by Paul
Anderson from, yes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows!
There’s workplace cutthroatery galore in the first half of
the movie, and that sort of thing has never interested me much, so I was a
little bored! But the movie, and the Pino Donaggio score, turn more
recognizably De Palmian by the second hour, with some split screen, a murder,
some dreams and a number of dumb plot turns! But recognizably DePalma doesn’t
necessarily mean good DePalma, and I’m sad to say it’s not, really! There are
moments, to be sure, but once you get to the very climax, with a suspense scene
involving some pretty laughable cellphone technology and a police inspector
clutching a bouquet of posy flowers, you have to say to yourself “Ha ha!”
After apparently casting his film simply by watching Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, De
Palma demonstrates a general sort of laziness that pervades the whole picture!
The climactic scene already mentioned feels as though DePalma thought to
himself “Hmm, wonder what Hitch would have done if he’d lived in a world of
portable data storage!” No one else has really wondered that, though of course
modern technology (cell phones especially) have undercut so many traditional
suspense devices that maybe it’s laudable for DePalma to have embraced it here!
All he’s really done is repurposed it though, and set it within
a goofy plot involving ladies fighting ladies! But hey, it’s still the
SubMaster at work, and there’s much to be said for that! I look forward to
DePalma making more movies before he hangs it up for good, and I hope they’re
wild and crazy thrillers like he’s always done! Meanwhile I should revisit some
of his older works and review them for you here, and maybe finally catch up
with Wise Guys, which, can you believe it, I’ve never even seen! Ha ha! Anyway,
I give Passion one and a half
ladykisses, which is only a fraction of the amount we get in the picture!
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