Son alibi

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.

Always likable Tom Selleck is well cast as a mediocre mystery writer (VERY mediocre, based on the samples of his writing we get in the voice-over narrations, which are one of the funniest parts of the movie). He's looking for a plot for his next book and finding it in the person of a beautiful Romanian college student (Paulina Porizkova) who seems to be hiding some big secret. The movie plays like the plot of a bad detective book, with perceptions of the female character shifting from dangerous to trustworthy to suspicious and back. The chemistry between the characters works very well romantically as both characters begin to fall in love despite being wary and suspicious of the various goings-on, and the Romanian KGB agents on Paulina's trail make for useful comic villains.

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.

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.

Okay, I can admit that this was a fairly dumb movie, but that didn't stop me from enjoying myself. Tom Selleck was a good choice for this silly film, and Paulina Porizkova shows that she's more than just a pretty face. Sometimes it did get too stupid for my tastes, but it was still a good way to kill an hour-and-a-half. Yeah, it's not Shakespeare, but it's a lot more fun than Shakespeare.