Gold Coast

David Caruso plays the part of a drifter and small-time crook who falls for a newly-wealthy mafia widow and tries to help her thwart the ambitions of a scheming, sadistic mob enforcer who's after her and her money, especially her money. As the creepy villain, Jeff Kober is both obnoxious and scary--he even looks vaguely reptilian. Unexpected plot twists and touches of quirky humor keep the tension going right to the ending, which turns out to be another odd twist in itself. Do not be fooled by the fact that this was a made-for-TV movie; it's actually quite good.

Gold Coast had definite possibilities. Based on a story by currently in vogue (not to mention accomplished) crime writer Elmore Leonard, and with a pretty decent cast in David Caruso, Marg Helgenberger and Jeff Kober, plus direction by actor turned director Peter Weller it sounded like it could be a pretty interesting little film. Unfortunately none of the above quite came off as they should have done, and while nothing on it's own was singularly poor, there was nothing that injected the film with any sort of quality either, and as such it just all came up as a very flat viewing experience.

All of the main cast have given better performances than they manage here, and while no-one gives a bad performance exactly, Helgenberger, Kober, Wanda DeJesus and even the usually intense Caruso seemed to be working pretty much on auto pilot on this one, while the supporting cast were dull at best.

In the case of Peter Weller's direction once again it seems to be a case of just going through the motions. While it was technically fine it lacked any real sense of itself, with Weller not managing to inject any excitement or suspense, or in fact anything to heighten the story. As such the film just meandered along without providing any real focus on the already somewhat lacking storyline, which in itself seemed to be both underdeveloped and even slightly convoluted due to a rather lacklustre screenplay adaption.

All in all Gold Coast came across as a rather tedious little film with very little to recommend it, not bad exactly, just somewhat boring.

You probably expect this movie to be awful. It's a made-for-cable flick starring David Caruso, and it's already in the $2.99 sale bin at Best Buy.

Well guess what? It's a pretty darned good movie. It's a good little mystery with fewer cliches than most theater releases of this genre. Caruso is a likeable, well-meaning but not-quite-competent angel to a mafia widow trying to escape the clutches of the baddies.

The performances are capable, the sets have a sumptuous look, the head psycho-baddie is both scary and funny. The dialogue has a touch of poetry, and the story is by Elmore Leonard.

And, unlike most of these things, the ending fooled me! That alone makes it worth the rental.

Funny thing though, they never should have shot Caruso running. He's a macho guy in his bearing and voice, but he runs very strangely, slowly, with his thighs frozen together and his hips swaying from side to side. Kind of destroys the illusion.

Well written story, good acting, moves right along. Better than 99 percent of theatrical "thrillers" that have nothing going in the way of plot or characterization. I liked the subtly quirky characters and Caruso's too-cool-for-words character. Marge Helgenberger was a fun sighting -- hadn't seen her since she was an alien sex slave in Lexx.

I took the trouble to look this up on IMDb after coming in late on it on Showtime because I was impressed with just about all of it. David Caruso was the only actor I recognized, but as far as I was concerned, everyone was excellent, particularly the big guy with the big hat; and contrary to some of the other reviews, I found myself remarking on the excellence of the direction, with good angles and fresh touches all over the place. I was not surprised to find it was written by Elmore Leonard, given the convolution; I'm still not sure who did what to whom and why, but who cares. A very pleasant couple of hours.