Marcas de Batom

My review was written in October 1992 after watching the movie at the Gramercy theater in Manhattan.

Unintentional laughs and goofy plot twists make "Traces of Red", a dramatic failure but an entertaining exercise in camp. In the currently hot erotic thriller genre, it should be a strong video title, but is miscast as far as the theatrical marketplace is concerned.

James Belushi brings his usual man of the people persona to a role that should have been a bit more uppercrust: a cop in Palm Beach, Florida, whose brother (William Russ) is running for Senate. Belushi is assigned to a murder case, and before long all of the principal characters (himself and brother included) are key suspects in the serial slayings of prostitutes and B girls.

With a nod to genre films like "Body Heat", "Traces of Red" initially holds one's interest in a whodunit mode. Unfortunately, scripter Jim Piddock threw out all concern for character consistency in his desire to keep the pot boiling, so the film becomes terminally silly.

Originally titled "Beyond Suspicion", pic includes so many traces of red herrings in its attempt to make every Palm Beach denizen as suspect, one fears that Ted Kennedy will eventually be dragged in as the killer. In particular, Lorraine Bracco, playing her femme fatale as a wannabe Melanie Griffith (right down to the voice), does many things for no reasons other than to make the audience wonder about her.

A skeleton in the family closet proves to be key to unravelling a mystery that includes one satisfying, though phony, twist at the very end. To throw film buffs off the track, Belushi narrates the film as a corpse, a successfully misleading homage to BIlly Wilder's "Sunset Blvd." format.

Belushi has the edge to create a film noir antihero but hardly the sex appeal to follow in Michael Dougas' or William Hurt's genre footsteps. As is sidekick and advisor, Tony Goldwyn suffer from the lack of script logic, Tech credits are okay but on the cheap side, missing the shadow play and lighting stylization a true film noir requires.

Nobody expects this to be a blockbuster, but it IS worth a watch for Belushi fans, and for those who like a very challenging plot. The budget for this film may not have been large, but it does present some grand, upscale homes and mansions, and beautiful south Florida and Keys scenery.

Jim has these cop/detective roles nailed, both as "good guy" and "bad guy". Here, he floats back and forth throughout the entire film.

Unbelievable, twisted, convoluted plot? Absolutely, but this is intended to be entertaining fiction. Watch it from the beginning, give it 15 minutes, and you may well be compelled to finish it.

Being that this movie has a lot of fine entertainment qualities I think it should some more credit than it has been given on imdb.

It's your basic 'who done it?' thriller with sex and murder but it keeps you guessing right to the end. I like these kinds of movies and I certainly think this one meets the standard.

To me it was worth watching more than once so I'll give it an 8 on imdb.

A homicide detective in Palm Springs tracks down a serial killer whose victims are all somewhat linked to him.

Crushingly boring, inextricably muddled and casually performed attempt at film noir, in which the killed victim tells the story, a la "Sunset Boulevard". The characters are so dull and dislikable, that by the time the final tricky twist comes on display you scarcely care.

Even in a robust casting stuffed of hot sequences mainly by the volcanic Lorraine Bracco as never seen before as vamp woman, also the poker face Jim Belushi and the unforgettable GHOST's villain Tony Goldwyn without forget our sensual V's heroine Faye Grant, the film sinks on a defective screenplay just on opening sequence when Jim Belushi appears laying death, the viewers will collect the damages on final far-fetched outcome.

The producers would be carefully and alert such fatal mistake requiring another setting to avoid mislead the audience, in other hand the girls involved delivered all their can on those appealing sequence that became an erotic thriller, also the producers dared to touch in a neuralgic subject with tactless, as expose by someone here this flick had a weak achievement at box-office, although bounced back on rental video format.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 1998 / How many: 4 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 6.25.