Traces of Red

If so, you'll like "Traces of Red", a murder mystery in which Belushi plays a cop hot on the trail of a serial killer in Palm Beach, FL. Though the flick misses the sweaty Florida noir atmospherics of "Palmetto" and "Gold Coast" and dishes up a convoluted, not-to-be-taken-seriously plot, it does feature the same old likeable tough guy Belushi in his slimmer days. Good stuff for Belushi fans. Marginal, mediocre escapist stuff for everyone else. (C)

Nobody expects this to be a blockbuster, but it IS worth a watch for Belushi fans, and for those who like a very challenging plot. The budget for this film may not have been large, but it does present some grand, upscale homes and mansions, and beautiful south Florida and Keys scenery.

Jim has these cop/detective roles nailed, both as "good guy" and "bad guy". Here, he floats back and forth throughout the entire film.

Unbelievable, twisted, convoluted plot? Absolutely, but this is intended to be entertaining fiction. Watch it from the beginning, give it 15 minutes, and you may well be compelled to finish it.

Even in a robust casting stuffed of hot sequences mainly by the volcanic Lorraine Bracco as never seen before as vamp woman, also the poker face Jim Belushi and the unforgettable GHOST's villain Tony Goldwyn without forget our sensual V's heroine Faye Grant, the film sinks on a defective screenplay just on opening sequence when Jim Belushi appears laying death, the viewers will collect the damages on final far-fetched outcome.

The producers would be carefully and alert such fatal mistake requiring another setting to avoid mislead the audience, in other hand the girls involved delivered all their can on those appealing sequence that became an erotic thriller, also the producers dared to touch in a neuralgic subject with tactless, as expose by someone here this flick had a weak achievement at box-office, although bounced back on rental video format.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 1998 / How many: 4 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 6.25.

"Traces Of Red" has a striking opening sequence, and a well-done double-twist at the end; the rest of the movie, though, is flat - almost like a TV movie (especially when compared to, say, the same year's "Basic Instinct", which I saw again yesterday - the gap between the two films is enormous). The biggest liability is Lorraine Bracco's vacuous, unconvincing femme fatale; James Belushi is equally miscast as the town stud, though he has some good moments near the end. The best things about the movie are the lush, jazzy music score, and some nice panoramic views of Palm Beach. ** out of 4.

When homicide cop Jack Dobson starts getting threatening letters and has his car trashed, he and his partner assume that it is the work of a mobster who Jack is testifying against. However when the writer of the letters starts killing friends and lovers of his, Jack starts to investigate with the killer's lipstick and a defective typewriter as his only clues.

Opening with a shot of his own dead body, we are taken through this film by the narration of Jack himself, seemingly in an attempt to make it more gritty and typical of the genre. The plot spins wildly out of control - but not due to an abundance of ideas so much as just poor writing and poor delivery of the finished product. The connections between the various dots is not very important as the vast majority of the strands exist solely to act as red herrings - although how you could ever hope to guess the ridiculous twists that come at the end of this film is beyond me - the makers needed have bothered trying to trick us!

The plot never manages to thrill at any point, which could be considered a problem in a thriller. The lack of clarity in any of the threads (never mind their composite) means that you never really get involved enough to be gripping or indeed even care who the killer is or what their motivation might be. Having established that this erotic thriller has no thrills, then we are left with only the promise of the erotic! Of course, as you might imagine, this film doesn't deliver that either. Oh, it has nudity and some quick scenes of sexual material but it is just lazily stuck in there to widen the market appeal of this film - certainly if you came here looking for, ahem, whacking material, then you will be very disappointed.

The cast is OK in regards names, but don't really do anything in regards helping the film be better. Belushi is as average as ever; I suppose he does try to bring intense emotions out of his character here, but generally he is doing his usual stuff. Goldwynn is OK but his main contribution here is another recognisable face. Bracco tries hard but she is no Sharon Stone! She doesn't suit her hairstyle, never mind her character. She tries but she comes off silly - and her body double does her no favours during the nude scenes - lying there as flaccid as a deflated balloon!

Overall this film is just poor. In terms of thrills it is dull and so incoherent and badly structured as to render any excitement dead. If you're looking for erotic thrills then this film will disappoint you as well. The only moment of interest for me was the fact that the makers clearly took bets to see how absurd a twist they could get away with.