Les veufs

Yes they did!Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac were second to none when it came to suspense and Hitchcock and Clouzot adapted their books with enthusiasm.

"Les veufs" is an absorbing psychological suspense,which Max Fisher(?)thoroughly butchered ;the novel was linear whereas the film uses too many pointless flashbacks ,and the plot was something like a cobweb where the hero got entangled in.The first hour is completely botched,using a ridiculous character with a Quebec accent and awful songs (the kind of music which passes for rock on made-for-TV movies ). The last third is more interesting,because it focuses on Garavan:unlike the other user,I do think the part was tailor-made for Pierce Brosnan(if he reads the book,he'll know what I mean),who is unsupported by the rest of the cast -the lead gives an abysmal performance-.

The final Garavan/Merkin feud was suspenseful on the paper -for instance never the "true" writer dares claim his work;the conversation between the two men remains full of insinuations ,but a lot of lines in the film were just thoughts in the writer's mind.So why not use a voice over?

One cannot always have a Hitchcock or a Clouzot.

David (Judd Nelson) struggles with Annabelle (Laurence Treil) and they get into a car accident. David wakes up from a coma. The movie flashbacks. In Paris, David is bitter at his novel being panned by the critics. He meets Annabelle at a café and she consoles him. His artist friend Max (Roy Dupuis) photographs tourist at the Effel tower. He's jealous of wealthy Garavan (Pierce Brosnan) who he assumes to be her boyfriend.

This movie looks horrible. The exterior work in Paris is functional. It's nice to see the sites but it's not more than that. The interior work looks horrible. It is bad cheesy erotica with model Laurence Treil doing an imitation of an actress. It is shot without any style. The movie is disjointed and a mess. Worst of all, it is boring.

"Entangled" attempted to be a cryptic mystery, but instead achieved "what the heck is going on" status. Punctuated by nudity and sex scenes, one gets the feeling that someone added the "storyline" AFTER they conceived the great idea to film a softcore porn flick.

Characters are thin, motivations are thinner, and you never actually get the full story.

Since there aren't any other comments for this movie, I'll give a brief synopsis: American author wakes up hysterical in the hospital, fully covered in casts and bandages. Flashbacks ensue, and we learn that he has written one previous novel that was killed by the critics, his lover is a french supermodel who is up to something fishy, and he has just finished his second novel, which he eventually enters in a literary contest under temporarily anonymous authorship. Somehow he ends up mangled in the hospital, but how? We spend the rest of the miserable movie wondering not that, but, why do we care?

During the course of the movie, we find out about murder, deception, lust, power plays, double crossings, greed, and betrayal. Sounds interesting, but don't be tricked. It is forced, but worse, completely unlikely and highly contrived; the plot twists are not intriguing, but banal. A murky movie does not a mystery make.

Judd Nelson is completely pretentious and uncharismatic. He appears to have some intellect, but doesn't really lend believability to his lines (did he really understand some of the words he said?). Also, he can play the bandaged, mangled, be-stitched gimp to perfection, but the lover of a supermodel? I don't believe it.

Why did Pierce Brosnan agree to do this movie? I know it was in his pre-007, post-Remington Steele days when he wasn't too hot a commodity, but this was truly an awful script, and his role was farcical.

> Run. Run far away from this movie, before you waste 90 minutes of your precious time getting Entangled.

A film that you can't really get into. The story does not so much unfold as lurch drunkenly from pillar to post. You find yourself not caring about the characters or what happens in the end, although poor old Pierce does his best with a weak script.

This has almost reached the ranks of "so bad it's funny" - especially with the ever inappropriate music score. One particular scene, accompanied with horror-film-style music, had us laughing when I'm sure that was not the film's intention. I have never been so aware of the effect that a musical score can have on a film until we came across this one!

All in all, a completely forgettable 'mystery' not worth unentangling.