Facile preda

I like Cindy Crawford. I really do. I respect the class she has maintained in an often classless fashion and modeling industry. But some people should stick to what they know.

Cindy, my God! In this movie, you were just in your lovely apartment overlooking the water. Your apartment is then blown up, you are blown off the balcony into the water, your cat is toast and all your possessions are gone. Oh, and by the way, a bunch of very bad people are now trying to shoot you dead. You get out of the cold water, run for your life and get taken to a safe house where the 2nd rate Baldwin asks you `How do you feel?' And Cindy says with the intensity of a heroin addict, `Like my life just exploded. What is this place, Motel Hell?' She said it like she was reading the phone book! A real actress would have been looking at the cop like he was nuts! And she would have delivered the lines accordingly. It got worse.

Did you see at the very first scene in the movie where Cindy's character is jogging and gets shot? Did you notice her slowing down to hit her mark and wait for the shot? I've never heard or seen anyone more stilted and lifeless except for a really bored telemarketer.

The writing was just BAD, and the movie was just about look how good Cindy looks after being dumped in water and having no shower. Notice her lips still had color? Did they have the long-lasting stuff back then?

Luckily it wasn't the kind of bad where you can't sit and laugh at it. You can sit and laugh at this one. In fact, you don't have a choice.

Can Cindy Crawford act? Not really, but well enough to scream and run from one overblown action scene to another, taking the odd breather for showers (plural) and changes of clothes.

I kind of enjoyed this brainless tosh. Cinders looks great, adequately playing an uncompromising, smarty-pants attorney. Baldwin is the cop determined to guard her body when people start trying to kill her. He just about pulls off the hardass cop routine, but never really musters the enthusiasm to look like he's enjoying it.

The bad guys glower and plot, hunting the fleeing pair down with ruthless skill (and some rather suspect computer trickery), then cocking things up each time allowing them to escape. It's hugely violent, fast moving, loud, full of swearing etc., all the things you associate with nineties action fodder, and finishes off with a big enough bang. Don't expect much, and you shouldn't be disappointed.

Oh, and if you're wondering about nudity, Cindy does indeed ‘get them out for the lads', and Baldwin shows his butt.

Before it careens into total silliness, `Fair Game' is a lot of fun. After the rather absurd attempted shooting of Crawford in the opening scene, `Fair Game' begins rather effectively examining the loss of privacy in the digital world, a fresh idea in 1995 (`Enemy of the State' didn't arrive till three years later). Crawford plays a lawyer specializing in civil cases. While helping one of his divorce clients she inadvertently falls under the scrutiny of a group of former KGB assassins. William Baldwin (`Backdraft')is the cop assigned to protect her. Baldwin looks like a cross between his brother Alec and Nicholas Cage; in other words, kind of goofy. Cindy Crawford looks like …well, Cindy Crawford, one of the world's most beautiful women. Crawford received some pretty bad raps for this movie. That's really unfair, but not surprising, considering Hollywood's experience with supermodels. In the 50s, they used to dub supermodel Suzy Parker. Crawford's considerably better than that. Her voice and line readings remind me of early Farrah Fawcett.

The big problem here is neither Crawford nor Baldwin. It's a script that would have us believe former KGB operatives would miss Crawford with a machine gun as she stands by a storefront with no cover. It's a script that would have us believe KGB agents would blow up Crawford's house with C4 to cover a COVERT operation. It's the script that would give Baldwin endless supplies of 9mm ammunition, while he leaves behind machine guns and `street sweepers'. It's a script that has the intelligent, sensible Crawford running from Baldwin, her only ally. It's a script that would have us believe the feisty Crawford would surrender without a fight, etc., etc.

Production values for `Fair Game' are top notch, great color photography, sound, music, editing and stunts. Had producer Joel Silver substituted Jackie Chan for Billy Baldwin, `Fair Game' would have made a first rate martial arts movie, even with its other shortcomings. ‘Course, I'm not sure Cindy Crawford would've `gotten naked' for Jackie Chan. Well, topless, anyway.

`Fair Game' is a `dumb blonde' of a movie, but Crawford is anything but dumb. She deserved better and deserves another opportunity to prove her mettle as an actress. If she made another movie, I'd go see it, even if she become closer to an "8" than a "10".

Nonetheless, `Fair Game' is, at worst, a `fair' movie. I give it a `5'.

Before I start the review, I would just like to point out that Fair Game is not entirely bad because of Cindy Crawford's performance. Her acting is one note and monotone, but that's not the real reason why the film is bad.

The plot is so illogical it makes no sense at all. We are told that Crawford's character, Kate McQuean, is a Lawyer who has been marked for death by the KGB, the reason being they could lose their ship in a court case that McQuean is pursuing. This kind of story line would belong in a courtroom drama, not an action film. And why are the villains the KGB? This was 1995; the KGB was irrelevant by then. The film itself is one long chase, and concentrates more on action instead of paying attention to character detail, which is another of the film's failings.

The action scenes are well-staged, and are the only good point to Fair Game. But there are certain questions raised; for a start, how could the villains use electronic equipment to track every move they make? Not to mention the use of a heat sensor, which can allow the villains to see everything they do (since when has such a thing ever existed?). And by the time the villains have finally captured McQuean, they are then instructed to 'keep the girl alive'; why? You've just spent the whole time trying to kill her, why not just get it done and out the way? Instead we have to watch the story get dragged out for longer. By this point, you'll be glad when it's all over.

Only worth watching if you're curious about Cindy Crawford's acting debut.

This is bad, very bad. It must have sounded like a good idea at the time: "Die Hard With Legal Mumbo-Jumbo" with a twist: we'll have a sexy model as the star.

Erm, it sounds good on paper, and perhaps it would have been a good idea if they hadn't screwed the damn thing up by giving us a weak script, even weaker plot, weaker villians and then give up on the sexy model as John McClane and turn her into a damsel in distress.

It almost feels like Producer, Joel Silver is satirizing or parodying himself in the constant need for set-piece action after set-piece action strung together on the weakest thing to ever grace the screen.

Everything that hits something explodes, cars hit telegraph poles and explode violently, tree's that are in the way explode even more violently...its almost too much to take in. I know action is what was driving hollywood around the early 90s - but this is just TOO much.

Anyway, the film pretty much nose-dives when Crawford - who looks stunning - turns into a damsel in distress with Baldwin acting like he's painting by numbers - just doing the thing because either Stallone dropped out or because of the money.

Not even the "sex-scenes" can save this terrible affair. Not even Berkov, now type-cast as Russian bad guys, can save it. Everything hurts...everything. The end explosion looks kinda cool, but it can't mask the fact that this film is flimsy at best - and at worst? Well, I just don't wanna think about that.

They could have made it a lot better than this trash. A die-hard with a woman as the hero could have been done a lot better. Its a shame with the buckloads of money they wasted on this trash seems to have gone onto Crawford's make-up.

My Rating: 0/10