The Last Seduction

Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) is a telemarketing manager running a croaked boiler room. Her husband Clay Gregory (Bill Pullman) sells stolen pharmaceuticals for a big payday. She steals his money and leaves NYC. She stops at Beston on her way to Chicago. Mike Swale (Peter Berg) is tired of small town girls. She walks into the bar and he's smitten. Her lawyer Frank Griffith (J.T. Walsh) tells her to stay put while he starts the divorce. She gets a job as Wendy Kroy but Mike happens to work at the company. Clay is desperate to pay off a loan shark and manages to track her to an area code. Then he figures out that New York backwards is Wen Kroy and sends Harlan (Bill Nunn) to find Wendy.

The bar scene is terrific and it's all about Linda Fiorentino. That goes for the whole movie. Her character is a real piece. Peter Berg is a good sucker and Bill Pullman is a good sleaze. It's surprisingly funny at times. It's all attitude and Fiorentino is dripping in it. Her dialog is neo-noir and snappy. I love the dark turns and her glee with making those turns.

There are many films that revolve around fatal women, who use sensuality and seduction for obscure purposes. In fact, there are even women in real life who do it skillfully. In the film before us, we will face perhaps one of the most perverse and diabolical female minds that cinema has ever known.

In fact, I have no other adjectives for Bridget Gregory, a woman who looks angelic and the kind of wife our mother always dreamed of for us, until we see her dark side. The film elaborates a web of intrigue and malice where Bridget is the main character, the spider in the middle of the web, ready to devour his male prey. She was married to a guy who traffics in drugs, but decides to run away and take with her a huge amount of trafficking money, which infuriates her husband (any husband, I think). She hides in a small town where she decides to settle down without being noticed. She meets Mike Swale and quickly becomes involved with him, to the point of convincing him to kill her husband... without him knowing that he is, in fact, her husband.

The success of the film is largely based on a well-written script by Steve Barancik and a very intelligent direction by John Dahl. Some scenes, like the bar scene where Mike tries to seduce Bridget and ends up seduced by her, are truly anthological, and although this is not a very explicit film (some teen films show much more skin than this one), it gives us with some of the most perverse and hotest sex scenes in cinema (regular commercial cinema, I'm not taking into account porn films), not so much for what it shows but for the intensity, beauty and commitment of the cast.

In the middle of the cast only one name stands out and it is around him that the whole film is built: Linda Fiorentino got, with this film, the most remarkable work of her career. She is viciously wicked, cruel, cynical, malevolent and highly seductive. The way she worked on the character is almost palpable. Bill Pullman and Peter Berg are also very good and interact perfectly with Fiorentino, but she is the one who carries the lead and makes the whole movie work.

Being a film that is a neo-noir with touches of satirical comedy in the middle, the most notable technical aspect is clearly cinematography, which wisely uses light and shadow. However, it is not a film as dark as most noir films, nor as dark in the way it approaches themes. The comedy is there, the satire is present and it lightens the atmosphere, makes the film more fun and less dense. The dialogues are incredible and deserve our full attention, as well as the scenarios and the superb soundtrack, by Joseph Vitarelli.

Director John Dahl presents modern Film-Noir. A strong minded woman(Linda Fiorentino)runs away with her husband's(Bill Pullman)profits from a drug deal leaving him to face his loan shark. She finds another town and another man(Peter Berg)to manipulate. Interesting cat and mouse plot with some spontaneous sex thrown in. The combustible kind! It is doubtful you would fall asleep after this one kicks into gear. The sultry Fiorentino knows the ways to be wicked. J.T. Walsh is also notable. Can you say sizzle?

Clay Gregory borrows some money to buy drugs and sell them on at profit. However his wife steals the profit and flees – leaving him with the loan shark to pay off. Bridget ends up in a small town where she hooks up with Mike Swale (her designated f***). She uses him to hide from Clay private detectives but it's only a matter of time before she's found and she begins to plan a way to use Mike's love to get out of trouble.

It's rare that a film has a strong female lead and is successful – female roles are hard to come by. Here this film is based around the ultimate femme fatale (or b***h as she's called here) and the story is clever and sexy. Bridget appears to be cold and manipulative – and every frame of the film confirms that. The story is clever and twisty – very enjoyable, right up to the end where you can't help but feel sorry for anyone that tries to stop her getting her way.

Fiorento is excellent and has yet to get as good a role since. She is sexy and manipulative and totally believable. Berg is good as the backwater boy who gets taken for a ride. Bill Pullman is good in a smaller role (he only once is seen outside of his apartment). While Bill Nunn and J.T. Walsh (when will I stop feeling his loss?) add class in roles that almost count as cameos they are so small.

Dark, wicked, sexy and intelligently twisty. Modern noir at it's best….but did we really need a sequel?

I loved this one because I couldn't get over the heights of carnality and the depths of sociopathic evil the characters were capable of achieving. Linda Fiorentino played perhaps the most despicably rotten, heartless, conniving, using bitch I've ever had the pleasure of watching. Pullman was great as the reaper of retribution intent on giving evil for evil. Peter Berg may have stolen the show with his total inability to say no to his own destruction. It was hard to believe the abyss of stupidity these 2 dopes had the capacity to plumb. Guess that's what happens when the little head takes over the thought processes for the big head, eh? The picture started out a little slow but developed into a real blowout with a jaw dropping finale. All the folks got exactly what they deserved. All of them.