Cat Chaser

Strong performance from McGillis still doesn't help this confusing thriller from Abel Ferrera. In the unrated version, there is a scene with McGillis in bed where she is asked to strip down nude. When asked to lie down on the bed, her captor takes out a revolver and places it in a sensitive place. It's a horrific image to imagine what could happen but Ferera is known for pushing the envelope.

Cat Chaser had a fair amount of promise from the start. Its director is the maverick Abel Ferrara who was responsible for such transgressive movies as The Driller Killer and The Bad Lieutenant, while its story is sourced from a novel by crime genre master Elmore Leonard. It has an interesting cast which has Peter Weller in the lead role, with a very good support. Charles Durning turns in the best performance as a sleazy sidekick. Tomas Milian is the chief baddie but looks almost unrecognisable from his days as an icon in 70's Italian movies. Kelly McGillis puts in a very uninhibited performance that includes a fair amount of full frontal nudity and a tough scene where she is abused by Milian. Frederic Forrest also stars, although his character doesn't really have a lot to do other than fall in swimming pools.

Despite the good personnel Cat Chaser lacks a certain overall impetus. Its story feels more than a little bit confused at times. The whole plot-line involving Weller's character travelling to the Caribbean to revisit a girl who saved his life years earlier is, to put it mildly, under-developed. It really could have been removed with no damage to the film in the slightest. I think the tales of the film being heavily re-edited by the studio would explain the somewhat haphazard cut of the film we have. The hand of Ferrara is only occasionally felt, most notably in a couple of shocking scenes. The aforementioned sequence involving McGillis is one, the other occurs later on where two men are stripped naked and shot to death. Both are pretty shocking for sure.

Although you have to think this movie should have been better, it's overall a decent enough flick.

Could have been so much more, given the supporting cast and Elmore Leonard's script, but it's a flat beer of a movie. Maybe Ferrara got homesick, but the pacing and editing is unusually lethargic, so perhaps impending bankruptcy was driving the whole production into the throes of despair. The performances are so underwhelming as to be invisible. Weller is a B-movie actor. Robocop is still his finest hour. McGillis looks fairly lantern-jawed and mannish throughout. Was Ferrara taking the mickey by shooting her profile so often?. Tree-like in every scene, could anyone seriously find her charms so irresistible?

The bogus history lessons and lightweight back story are dull as ditchwater. And the mushy love scenes between the two leads just don't cut it. A clunker for completists. Catch it on afternoon TV if you're paralysed from the neck up.

Hard to believe that Ferrara had anything at all to do with this movie.

Of all the Leonard stories put to film, this to me is the best. The voice-over along with the visuals carry the book's feel, both plot and dialogue. Peter Weller has a subtleness that breaks through his seeming deadpan, and Charles Durning couldn't be better at ambiguity. Kelly McGillis is more than a pretty and sexy figure. All the characters are mixtures of good and not so good, and as typical Leonard characters they work out the balances of their desires.

The direction is great. It keeps you moving, wondering, and figuring out the mystery. The story has several components that mix well as they are revealed. And there is the basis of reality to this film. It helps to recall the invasion of the Dominican Republic and the practices of torture attributed to the head of police at the time.

One of this films wonderful attributes is the score by jazz pianist/composer Chick Corea. It surprises me that no one has mentioned it.

And lastly, let me say that the film is exciting. Viewing after viewing it holds up well.

This movie was beset by corporate problems which may account for its rough edges. Elmore Leonard is one of the best detective story writers today, but even as a co-script writer, he couldn't do much with this confusing picture, made from one of his books (a terrific read, incidentally). .Aside from the beautiful art direction, an excellent Chick Correa score that's never gotten much play, and a nicely edgy appearance by the late Charles Durning, the poor man's Sidney Greenstreet, "Cat Chaser," set in the sultry, tropical Dominican Republic, is like wasting away in Margueritaville, sans Margueritas. .One saving grace is the dialogue -- vintage Elmore Leonard, especially the lines given to Charles Durning's character. Leonard is at the top of his game here and Durning's delivery, in his patented New York Irish accent, doesn't let him down. Peter Weller and Kelly McGillis are as unfetching a couple as possible. Director Abel Ferrara has done much better work elsewhere.