Gotham

I thought the storyline was provocative, and the writing was good but not superlative (Kevin Jarre is a wonderful writer, and I'm willing to bet the script would have been lots better if the director had left it alone.) Tommy Lee Jones was fantastic, as usual- his leading lady was a beautiful woman but a mediocre actress. Liked the Russian Orthodox priest, too; a fun addition. Really liked the lady singer doing 'Where Or When' in a club where the couple met. 'Danny Boy' was lovely, as well, as was the Latin piece the leading lady danced on the roof to. Fun movie to critique and "improve" in your mind as you're watching it. the soap opera crowd would probably love it without reservation. The meticulous might very well cringe. All and all very entertaining.

"Eddie Mallard" (Tommy Lee Jones) is a down-on-his-luck private detective who is about to be evicted from his office for failure to pay his rent. Needless to say, he is surprised when a wealth man by the name of "Colin Bruce" (Charlie Rand) walks into his office and offers to pay him a considerable amount of money to simply convince his ex-wife "Rachel Carlyle" (Virginia Madsen) to agree to leave him alone. But what really stuns Eddie is when Colin tells him that Rachel has been dead for ten years. Now, normally any private detective with an ounce of integrity would turn down the job because their prospective client is obviously insane. But being that he is in serious financial straits Eddie takes the job anyway. However, once he finally meets Rachel things begin to take a horrifying turn from that point on. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a strange film which at times didn't seem to flow well from one scene to the next. Even so both Tommy Lee Jones and Virginia Madsen played their parts quite well and--strange as it was--I enjoyed this film for the most part and have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

If now Oscar-winner Tommy Lee Jones were allowed to delete all memory of one of his previous films, no doubt he would choose this incredible mess of a thriller to cast into oblivion. He plays a private dick who is hired by a rich husband to settle some matters with his ex-wife, who is holding some jewelry of his in her possession. Only that the woman apparently has been dead for a decade! He takes the case thinking of making easy money with a crackpot client, but the woman appears to be alive and well and even very seductive (Virginia Madsen, no less), all qualities painfully lacking in the film, which is slow, poorly acted (evidence of a great lack of enthusiasm on the side of Tommy and par for the course for Madsen)and disconcertingly ambiguous, undecided between a solid thriller of unexpected final twists (which it has not) and a run of the mill ghost-story that had traded horror for sensuality. Really dreadful.

I really enjoy this quirky, sensual film, but even after several viewings, I am still a bit confused about the plot. It's not one of those bizarre films where you shake your head and say "what?", but rather one that keeps you going up and down different alleyways. Tommy Lee Jones is very sexy and perfectly cast as the rough and tumble private eye hired to get a man's dead wife off his trail. But, is the wife really dead? What is fantasy and what is reality? Virginia Madsen is drop dead gorgeous, no pun intended. She and Tommy Lee Jones have a very hot sexual chemistry between them. This is the only movie with the formidable Mr. Jones that I have seen him engaged in a passionate, nude love scene. This alone is worth renting the movie. It's not great, but it's very old-fashioned, gritty film noir, and extremely sexy, and definitely not predictable.

Gotham usually gets confused with that city-with-a-comic-book-superhero in it. This is a horrible thing for such a terrific movie. It has nothing to do with that comic book! If you love film noir, and can actually FIND this movie(also known as "The Dead Can't Lie")-probably only on a VHS, then you'll be sorry if you DON'T get it!

I love this film because there are so many new things to find each time I watch it. It is a show about a Private Eye who is down on his luck until a man offers him an assignment no one else will take. His job is to find this man's ex-wife, who is continuously stalking him, and try to get her to cease and desist. The problem? She has been dead for 10 years! NO- this isn't some cheesy ghost story,and this is no comedy! It really sucks you in, and leaves you wanting to watch it again. I found Gotham to be an eerie yet believable film which still haunts me every time!!