Movie Review: Color Of Night (1994)

A psychosexual suspense thriller, Color Of Night is a lurid mess.

New York psychiatrist Dr. Bill Capa (Bruce Willis) is shocked when one of his patients commits suicide. He relocates to Los Angeles to de-stress and reconnects with an old colleague, the vastly successful Dr. Bob Moore (Scott Bakula). Capa attends a group therapy session at Moore's office consisting of five disturbed patients: sex-obsessed Sondra (Lesley Ann Warren), obsessive-compulsive lawyer Clark (Brad Dourif), artist Casey (Kevin J. O'Connor), grieving widower Buck (Lance Henriksen) and the young Richie, who is suffering through a gender identity crisis.

Moore discloses that he has been receiving death threats, and one of the five patients is the likely suspect. Sure enough Moore is soon killed, and police Lieutenant Hector Martinez (Ruben Blades) asks Capa to take over the group sessions to try and identify the killer. Capa finds himself getting embroiled in the complex lives of the patients, and soon meets and starts a steamy relationship with the free spirited and mysterious Rose (Jane March).

Color Of Night is One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest with the inmates not only running the asylum but also writing the script, and suddenly all is forgiven if Nurse Ratched would only come back. Boasting a plot that can only be described as batshit crazy, the film is a bewildering mix of amateur psychiatry, salacious eroticism and slasher horror.

Produced by Andrew Vajna and directed by Richard Rush, Color Of Night ventures into a mishmash of psychological and societal topics in search of maximum shock value. The downstream impacts of child abuse, the trauma of losing loved ones, gender identity, a spectacular suicide, multiple personality disorder, murder most gory, superfluous sex and nudity, a case of infidelity linking a police officer with a surviving victim of crime, bondage imagery, obsessive compulsive behaviour, an irrelevant car chase and one attempted murder-by-car-drop are all somehow wedged into the same story.

And weaving yet another thread through the jumbled ball of psychobabble is Dr. Capa suffering from trauma-induced color-blindness, an inability to see red due to the New York suicide of his patient, a condition unlikely to be resolved by the upcoming events in Los Angeles.

It all sounds like fertile ground for bad Mel Brooks-style comedy, but there is not a hint of irony or wit to be found. Instead Color Of Night is delivered as a straight-up neo-noir, complete with mumbled intermittent narration by Dr. Capa, mostly to describe the wispy Rose every time she approaches him in various variations of not-there outfits. But to Rush's credit, he does manage to hold the outlandish plot together, and as far as the film strays away from credibility, it does adhere to a perverse logic of its own creation within all the sleazy-chic sets.

Bruce Willis cruises through the film with a general attitude of cool bemusement in what turned out out to be training grounds for a much better second outing into the world of helping troubled minds. Jane March follows up one almost-always-naked film with another, and here her performance alternates between cringe-worthy and not bad, her less flighty scenes carrying admirable intensity.

Color Of Night is bad enough to be enjoyed, a sordid exercise in excess that splatters into strangely compelling wreckage.

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Movie Review: Victor/Victoria (1982)

A gender-bending comedy romance with some music, Victor/Victoria finds laughs by poking sharp fun at traditional masculine and feminine roles.

Paris, 1934. Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) is an unemployed and starving classically trained soprano singer in a city looking for edgier and more decadent entertainment. An accidental meeting with recently-fired and openly gay nightclub host Carroll "Toddy" Todd (Robert Preston) results in a brainstorm: Victoria will pretend to be the exotic Polish Count Victor Grazinski, an expert female impersonator and cross-dresser performing as the sultry Victoria. The ruse works and soon Victoria is the toast of the town.

American nightclub owner and businessman King Marchand (James Garner) is visiting Paris with his girlfriend Norma (Lesley Ann Warren). King has gangland contacts and so travels with bodyguard "Squash" Bernstein (Alex Karras). King catches the glitzy show featuring Victoria and is hopelessly infatuated, and just as stunned when she is revealed to be Count Victor. King refuses to fully believe that Victoria is a man, and sets out to find out the truth, unleashing a knock-on series of sexually confused events.

Written and directed by Blake Edwards and featuring one of his wife Julie Andrews' finest roles, Victor/Victoria celebrates love across gender divides. With a lovingly recreated Gay Paree between the two wars providing the perfect backdrop, the film dives headfirst into murky waters where inner souls attract and traditional gender roles are hopelessly muddled.

The premise of a woman pretending to be a man who impersonates women in order to launch a successful cabaret act tests the limits of what a movie can explain. Edwards just about gets away with it, although Andrews passing herself off as a man rarely carries conviction. But beyond the labels, this is a story of connections and friendships, and Edwards' message is one of love. The heterosexual Victoria and homosexual Toddy form a strong bond based on a business partnership, the very hetero King jettisons the over-sexed Norma and is hopelessly attracted to Victor whether or not she is Victoria. Before all emotions are sorted, even the bodyguard Squash will get in on the act.

Surrounding the central theme is some cheap Clouseauesque comedy, and Edwards is unable to exercise the necessary restraint to trim the fat, especially in the second half as the film extends to a flabby 132 minutes. The few musical routines are serviceable but also repetitive and far from memorable.

Julie Andrews helps the movie through the rough patches and is laser focussed on keeping Victoria a rational character through the comic sexual mayhem. Robert Preston gets the showiest role, and revels in the freedom of portraying a man who could care less about what others think. Lesley Ann Warren is also humorously flamboyant, but disappears from the film for a long stretch.

Victor/Victoria is a fun frolic through the weird world of human magnetism. Whether you come as you are or as you want to pretend to be, Cupid's arrow is pointy.

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Movie Review: Clue (1985)

A madcap whodunit comedy, Clue has a large cast breathlessly running around a spooky mansion for 90 minutes. The film runs out of steam and ideas long before the convoluted plot ties itself into an unfathomable knot.

On a stormy night at an isolated mansion, the butler Wadsworth (Tim Curry), the maid Yvette (Colleen Camp) and the Cook (Kellye Nakahara) prepare dinner. Six strangers are invited, and they have been instructed to use colourful pseudonyms: Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan), Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn), Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd), Mr. Green (Michael McKean), Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull) and Miss Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren). The apparent dinner host also shows up: Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving) claims to be blackmailing all the guests. He is soon mysteriously killed, as is the Cook.

Wadsworth leads the guests on an investigative quest to search the mansion and unmask the killer, but a stream of apparently uninvited strangers keep on ringing the door bell and also getting themselves killed, including a lost Motorist, an off-duty Cop, and a Singing Telegram Girl. All the dinner party guests have motives, and it's up to Wadsworth to untangle everyone's movements and reveal the truth.

Based on the popular board game, Clue stumbles on a most cluttered plot, and disintegrates as the bodies pile up and the invited guests dart aimlessly from room to room. Director Jonathan Lynn, who co-wrote the script with the usually sharper John Landis, never finds neither the humour nor the focus necessary to build an engaging narrative. By the time Wadsworth runs through (literally) what happened (and there are three variations to the ending), the only thing that matters is that he gets it over with as quickly as possible to end the tedium.

Tim Curry does enliven the proceedings somewhat with his sheer energy and willingness to ham it up, but the rest of the decidedly theatrical cast members are quickly lost among the furniture and interrupted by the continuously ringing doorbell introducing yet another nondescript victim.

Sad to say, but Clue does not have a clue.

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