Olhos de Serpente

Psychological drama within a drama, centered around a film shoot, where the line between reality and the film's story start to blur.

While shooting a movie in Los Angeles about the abused wife Sarah Jennings (Madonna) that has converted to Christian and her husband Francis Burns (James Russo) that misses their orgies, the New Yorker director Eddie Israel (Harvey Keitel) pushes his lead actor and actress to the edge affecting their real lives. Eddie has one brief affair with Sarah but he feels also affected by his work and confesses the truth about his many infidelities to his wife Mad Israel (Nancy Ferrara), blurring fiction and reality and destroying his marriage.

"Dangerous Game" is a sort of experimental "movie within a movie" showing a parallel journey to hell of the character, lead actor and director blended with sex, drugs and booze. The result is a strange and unpleasant movie but very well acted, especially by Madonna that has a magnificent and very convincing performance. It is not entertaining and certainly not the best film of Abel Ferrara, but for fans like me it is worthwhile watching it. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Olhos de Serpente" ("Eyes of Snake")

This one is not your typical Hollywood fare. Emotionally gripping and confronting, "Dangerous Game" cuts to the core of human nature and our search for answers and meaning. Abel Ferrara's exploration of our desires, fears, and failings rings painfully true. Starring Madonna (don't let that put you off) Harvey Keitel and James Russo, and directed by Abel Ferrara, this is an interesting psychological drama about a directors obsession with his film, and the stars breakdown of reality during their making of it. This film is filmed like a documentary about the actors in their film how they get on or not get on you will have to watch it to get the benefit, my description is not fulfilling the content of the film very well.

Madonna and Harvey Keitel are extremely good on their roles, and Madonna is actually able to prove that she can be very good if the role is good enough. She delivers a sincere performance about an actress too embroiled in the characters she plays. Along with the legendary Harvey Keitel, the cast does an amazing job portraying the seedy underbelly of the film industry, using what appears to be old- school method acting. Possibly the best Madonna performance in a movie ever! Such a shame her acting didn't continue along this road. She's actually very credible in this and years later, the movie itself seems much more cohesive than it was upon first viewing.

Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

Not a particularly entertaining movie this one, but definitely an interesting watch when you take into consideration not only the movie, but the similarities which surrounded its release. And of course Madonna, who (unwittingly?) gives the best performance of her much ridiculed celluloid career.

The film revolves around director Eddie Israel (Keitel) and his supporting cast members in their journey to film the uber-dark relationship drama 'Mother of Mirrors'. Starring alcoholic drug dependent Francis Burns (James Russo) and recent Christian convert Sarah Jennings (Madonna) the film within a film blurs over into real life, leaving the viewer confused about whether the actors are acting their character in 'Mother', their character in 'Dangerous Game' or even their character in real life. The confusion even seems apparent on set, with one directors clapper-board shots with the movies real director A. Ferrara noted on it.

In reality, Ferrara had to resort to accepting finance for the film by Madonna's Maverick Films and thus also accepting its MD as his leading actress. Madonna once said that when she attended the premiere she left the theatre crying as it was in her eyes a completely different movie, and all her best scenes were cut. Dig a little deeper with this one and you might be able to see the underlying story which is far more interesting than what's bubbling on the surface.

This is a strange and disturbing experimental movie. A rare and great performance by Madonna. She actually can act under the control of the right director. Although, I hear she hated. It seems ironic that she finally makes a good movie and doesn't even realize it. I guess she made some complaints that she thought her character was going to be stronger. (Funny, if she wants to be a Feminist Avenger, or some kind of role model of strength, maybe she shouldn't have made a career out of exploiting herself for fame and the all mighty dollar. Okay, now I'm ranting, but isn't funny how men are especially really down with the NeoFeminist Bull about how it's actually empowering for women to exploit themselves.) Ferrara plays with the autobiographical nature of the subject matter. The plot centers on a film director who compartmentalizes his personal and professional life, until the secrets of his professional life overwhelm him.