Lying in Wait

This is another boring film done by Rutger Huger. His career has been on the down slide for many years. I think he should just call it quits. He played a good weirdo but the story was lacking. The rest of the cast were no names and desperately needed acting lessons. Do yourself a favor and bypass this one. 5/10

I read this page before watching the movie so I expected a pretty bad movie. Now I can say that is not true. The story doesn't make much sense and the ending is far fetched, but it's very amusing. Hauer plays a excellent role, a psycho who uses Babee Gordon as a hand puppet. You can see Hauer really enjoys his role and he shows he can do better then the roles he usually gets (offered). Without Hauer this movie would be just another B thriller, perhaps a even a C thriller. Madsen shows she isn't only a nice woman to look at but she can also act. Thomas Newton is okay but the real fireworks come from Hauer..

In this movie, Vera (Virginia Madsen) does a drunken, beachfront striptease, although her character quickly sobers up and realizes the inappropriateness of her actions. The abortive dance, with no overt nudity ,was one of the most erotic scenes in my recent cinema experience.

Obviously, eroticism is in the eye of the beholder, but if you find Virginia Madsen as attractive as I do, you'll want to track this film down.

Young bachelor Babee is looking after his dead mother's estate when married couple Keith and Vera move in. Babee becomes attracted to them by the beautiful Vera and the risk taking Keith. However at a party Vera crashes her car, putting Keith into a coma. When Keith comes out he is in a semi-vegetative state and must rely on Vera to look after him. Keith can't move or speak but reveals to Babee that he can still talk and starts to kill those that wronged him with Babee's help.

This starts reasonably enough - it looks like a femme-fatale type deal. However after the accident (early on in the film) it all gets a bit silly and doesn't make sense any more. The main problem is the ridiculous idea of this man totally paralysed rolling into people in his wheelchair to kill them. The fact that the innocent Babee, so attracted to Vera, would assist him to do things in secret is even more unlikely. And the ending is just absurd - not only the set-up but the conclusion.

Virginia Madsen is quite good in the role of Vera. Likewise Thomas Newton and Vanessa Dorman are good as Babee and Elle respectively. However Hauer seems to have lost any ability to pick good roles - Bladerunner and the Hitcher were clearly early flukes. He spends most of his time in a wheelchair and looks stupid as he pretends to be a vegetable, he really has a thankless role.

Overall this is a sloppy film. It has several good performances but the plot is very thin - at times it feels like no one knows what they're doing. What plot there is (paralysed man in a wheelchair bumps people off) is stupid and badly handled. Overall, an occasionally embarrassing mess.

Although I'm not sure this film works as a thriller, it is an effective character study. Babee is the reclusive son of a late television star who lives alone in a large, somewhat decrepit, Hollywood mansion. His only friend is a beautiful young neighbor who grew up with him. His life changes drastically when a troubled couple (Rutger Hauer and Virginia Madsen) moves in next door. Hauer's amoral character, Keith Miller, decides to tutor Babee in the finer things in life (drinking, gambling and women). After Miller is severely brain damaged in an accident, Babee becomes his caretaker. When Miller's enemies start dying, however, Babee becomes convinced that Miller is faking his injury. Although most people could predict the ending around the beginning of the movie, "Lying in Wait" is well made and the acting is very good.