Slam Dance

'Slamdance' is a frustrating exercise! A good director (Wayne Wang - 'Smoke') and an interesting cast, led by Tom Hulce ('Amadeus'), are dragged down by a rambling and dull script from actor/writer Don Opper (previously responsible for the inexplicable cult movie 'Android'). All your standard noir elements are here - a sexy blonde with a double life, a hero in way over his head, a murder frame, corruption in the police force and even higher, but Opper manages to make it all so boring you can't wait for it to end!

I mentioned the interesting cast, and that is the only reason for sitting through this. It includes legendary character actor Harry Dean Stanton ('Repo Man'), punk rockers turned actors Adam Ant and John Doe ('Boogie Nights'), Robert Beltran ('Eating Raoul') and the too little seen Millie Perkins ('The Shooting'). Virginia Madsen ('The Hot Spot') also appears in flash back only.

'Slamdance'? I'll sit this one out, thank you.

Terrific cast including Tom Hulce, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Virginia Madsen, Harry Dean Stanton, Millie Perkins and rock star Adam Ant is wasted in this lackluster wrong man/blackmail drama (its title apparently picked out of a hat). Hulce, looking like something that got caught in the clothes dryer, plays a Los Angeles cartoonist whose affair with a murdered girl involves him a scandal that sucks him into a whirlpool of danger. Early effort from director Wayne Wang (who later helmed "The Joy Luck Club" and "Maid in Manhattan") is all sleek '80s style and posturing with zero substance. NO STARS from ****

Ready for a wild ride into the underworld?

Murder, sex, Mafia, cops, love and marriage ... Slamdance has it all!

C.C. Drood* is a cartoonist but his life is anything but a comic strip. When an affair with a mystery woman he meets at a friend's club leads to murder and his implication, life turns upside down for Drood. Just wanting to reunite with his wife and their daughter, Drood has to solve a mystery that even the cops can't figure out. And life begins to imitate art ... the art of being treacherous!

==========> *TOM HULCE is C.C. Drood. Tom, again, brings us a complete character ... as real as life. Drood has a funny side, a serious side, a vulnerable side and a loyal side. He shows us the chaos of being caught in a lie and the struggle of trying to straighten it out. Drood is a great role and is done to perfection by Hulce!

Maybe I am biased when I say that as I only rented this out because Don Opper wrote it and played a part. But that's only because he's good at what he does. Five years after writing and staring in the classic film Android he made this downbeat conspiracy mystery which has a good handful of funny bits stuck in for good measure. A woman is dead and the police are suspectful of an artist who called into the police after escaping from some strange guys with guns. The plot is slowly revealed as to what is going on. Although this movie doesn't really have enough twists in it than it should have had it is still rock solid entertainment, why Adam Ant is in there as the artist's mate I'll never know. Rent it out and see what you think. 7 out of 10

Hulce is a great actor who eventually fell off the face of the earth after an Oscar worthy performance in Amadeus. Wasted talent on this dud. Boring movie.