deconstructionist

I just purchased the complete series DVDs and have begun watching. I had forgotten what a great show this is. It's quite interesting to watch as Falk develops the character over time into the iconic Columbo we all remember. In the earliest shows he not as much the sly and subtle adversary lulling the suspect into feeling he can evade justice by outsmarting him.

The "how's he going to nail him" rather whodunit approach also makes the show more watchable multiple times than many mysteries where if you remember the culprit it spoils things. It's a lot more difficult to remember how he figure it out and confronted the killer than it is with other shows to remember who did it.

Everything about this movie is awful. Otis may have been the worst actress of all time and casting her as a shrewd young lawyer was just over the top; she'd be over her head intellectually as a model (although she is hot). I'd peg her for real porn but I seriously doubt she could moan convincingly on cue. Mickey Rourke is a weird shade of orange (Tan or jungle fever? Not sure.) but he delivers his purple prose as though he was reading the lines off a teleprompter. The dialogue is insipid and and the "plot" worse.

The idea that this film was daring or erotic for 1990 is laughable. 1890 yes, but by 1990 the concept of people having sex in movies was no longer a novelty.

This movie represents the beginning of Pacino's slide from important actor to self-parodizing caricature. If his performance was deliberately so awful because it was meant to be a metaphor for the way cocaine can destroy self-awareness and render one a manic self-absorbed fool, it would be justifiable but clearly that is not the intent of his performance (which must be distinguished from the Montana character). There can be no question that Pacino thinks he is giving a great performance.

This is basically a comic book level effort except the acting and story is not as subtle as comic book characterizations.

That said this movie is entertaining and one of the all-time classics of the "unintentionally hilarious" genre. That pretty much the same movie has been made hundreds of times on 3% of the budget and with .0001% of the pretension is besides the point.

If you love bad movies with formulaic and unoriginal stories, sublimely awful dialogue mouthed by actors who equate histrionics with art and are punctuated with plenty of gratuitous blood and gore for shock value then you can hardly do better than this. If you REALLY like them when they are grandiose big budget flicks with writers, directors and actors who have egos the size of Jupiter then this will be one of your favorites ever.