Mi testigo preferido

Her Alibi is a very enjoyable movie with a little intrigue and the most beautiful girl in the world. I have been madly, passionately in love with Paulina Porizkova since seeing her in Vogue in about 1985. I envy Tom Selleck. Paulina can cut my hair any time. The thing I like is how natural she acts. She seems more relaxed than some of the other more experienced actresses. I have seen other models try screen acting with disastrous results. Tom Sellick plays his part well; that of a man so besotted with this heavenly creature that he finishes up doing silly things. That happens to many men in the same situation.

A good movie topped off with a divine woman.

Philip Blackwood is a depressed writer who's lost his spark and his passion for writing. His successful detective character is the subject of endless predictable stories and his agent is on his back trying to get him to turn it around. As he goes to court with the usual oldies who attend in order to have something to Gossip about up steps the beautiful Nina, an eastern European arrested for murdering a fellow countryman with a pair of scissors. Tom Selleck decides to act as her alibi (Hey it's the title of the film as well!) and invites her to live with him as he believes she is innocent. As the police detective that drops by to chat with Philip Blackwood informs him, if the alibi is made up then he is not only a perjurer, but more importantly, he is liable to be the next victim in order for the alibi to stand forever. What follows is a series of ridiculous escapades in which Philip's life is under threat at every stage of the day, never knowing if the lovely Nina is a cold blooded killer or just deadly unlucky.

I had the fortune to get this film out of the video library on a whim and wound up falling in love with the film as much as Blackwood does with Nina, the parallels between his super-cool fictional world and the clumsy long suffering Blackwood are fantastic, and all the supporting cast do a great job.

Don't get me wrong, this is not an Annie Hall or a when harry met sally, it's silly ridiculous and as Farantino says "I gotta say, Phil, You're works a little predictable!" but it's still a good watch and a very fun film.

Though not a masterpiece of film-making, HER ALIBI makes for a pleasant change from the violent films that Hollywood keeps on churning out. Tom Selleck and model-cum-actress Paulina Porizkova generate some genuine sparks on-screen in this lighthearted comedy/mystery. Selleck does well in the role of a once-popular mystery writer, while Porizkova, better known for her model-perfect looks, satisfies as the mysterious foreigner who captures the heart of Selleck.

Tom Selleck is the titular character, "her alibi," who provides a beautiful murder suspect with a false alibi because he believes she is innocent. However, once he brings her back to his house, he begins to believe perhaps he was wrong - and now she is trying to murder him so that he cannot go back on his word.

Selleck's character also happens to be a mystery writer of cheap paperback books so he uses what's happening in his life as a parallel to his story, so at moments throughout the film we hear voice-overs of the story being narrated and it's played for comedy (example: Selleck makes a lot of noise while spying on the murder suspect, then in voice-over he reads a line from the book he's writing and says that the character in the book "quietly snuck up on the girl.").

Not a great movie, but it will entertain you.

Her Alibi (1989) directed by Bruce Beresford, is a very funny, but totally predictable, murder mystery. Tom Selleck plays Phil Blackwood, a mystery writer whose stories are as predictable as the film's plot. Phil has run out of creative steam and his reputation is diminishing.

Paulina Porizkova plays Nina, who is a beautiful (very) Romanian who may or may not be a murderer.

From the moment Phil sees Nina, we can guess where the movie is going. In other words, Her Alibi isn't really a mystery. What makes the film enjoyable isn't the plot, but the technique Beresford utilizes. We see a scene, and hear Selleck's voice- over as he writes the scene into his novel. Of course, what we see and what we hear are two totally different versions of reality. The contrast really is very funny.

William Daniels does well as Sam, Selleck's long-suffering publisher. Porizkova can't act, but nobody will notice. Selleck plays Selleck.

If you want to see fine film-making, rent Beresford's Breaker Morant. If you want to laugh at a film with no social significance at all, rent Her Alibi.