Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Losing in the translation, 23 May 2004
A remake of a tense French original, this is a twist on the eternal triangle scenario as the two women attempt to dispose of their redundant lover.
Isabel Adjani owns a school for difficult boys: the most difficult of them is her brutish husband. Sharon Stone is his lover, drawn to the conclusion that life would be better without him. The two women plot a murder and execute it in chaotic fashion. The body, however, fails to lie down. Is he dead? Is he alive? Has someone seen them? Are they being blackmailed? And the very private eye of Kathy Bates is now investigating his disappearance.
As a plot, it has great potential. The cast is, potentially, excellent. But something is lost in the translation. What could and should have been a first-rate thriller is reduced to almost B-movie fare as plot and characterisation are subjected to Hollywood's ritual process of the bland leading the bland.
The whole production fails to crank up the tension and eroticism. Adjani's character is a former nun, an abused woman suffering from a heart condition: there is considerable potential here for sympathy, for drama, for erotic exploitation ... and yet the character comes across as insipid, most of the time reduced to a simpering, onlooker role.
Stone can deliver wonderful performances as a hard-bitten, assertive woman of the world, sexually predatory and self-confident ... yet the performance isn't quite convincing here. You feel she is reduced to a plastic stereotype and given no chance to envigorate her role. Even the explosive sexual tension between her and Adjani is reduced to the fizzle of a damp squib.
Bates, meanwhile, appears as a belligerent little rolly-poly detective with a sense of humour ... but her role doesn't quite get the comic leverage and dramatic presence it deserves.
All in all, the ingredients were there, but you are left feeling that while it tries hard, 'Diabolique' should have done much better.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
 
|
|
|
|
|
|
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This film misses the real context of the original, 9 Jun 2006
This is a remake of the black and white adaptation of Boileau-Narcejac's novel. The shift from the French context to the American decor is nothing but a change of settings and it adds nothing. But it is extremely well built as a thriller and this American version adds a clearly stated sexual relationship between the two main women, the plotters. It also emphasizes this feminine presence by making the « inspector » a woman, which is unthinkable in the French context of the 1950s. And this woman can become an accomplice in the final cover-up, the final assassination of the ressuscitated victim, out of feminine understanding. The context of this let's say prep-school for boys is hardly described and does not correspond to the original French school for delinquents. We never get this idea that the kids are imprisoned and that the school is a reservation for anonymous survivors ghetto-ised out of the social war that is raging outside. And that is such « schools » that both the conservative right and the socialist left are asking for in France right now to take care of suburban young rebels who call themselves barbarians or the natives of the republic, be they black, brown, grey or white, which does not in anyway matter.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It's all about Chemistry and Mystery, 9 Nov 2002
This remake of the 1954 French movie Les Diaboliques is a sharp thriller. It stars, Sharon Stone - In her one of her excellent turns as a femme fatale, Isabelle Adjani - The Wide eyed innocent (or is she?) and Chazz Palminteri - The Cruel Husband. While this is a remake it differs in several areas to the original and is more "Hollywood manufactured" this works for the intended audience. This film is all about intrigue, it works hard to keep you guessing and the chemistry between the three leads holds the film together. Kathy Bates makes an appearance as a wise-cracking private detective in a small but strangely comical role. Isabelle Adjani is beautiful and doe eyed, successfully balancing her characters innocence and more evil side. The always engaging Palminteri is suitably menacing in his role although not quite as sadistic as perhaps the character should have been. Overall a very satisfying film, with a bit of everything for anyone.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
![Diabolique [DVD] [1996]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41QKQES07AL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
![Sliver [DVD] [1993]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dffCfmq2L._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
![One Deadly Summer [DVD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51zlm6itVXL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
![Basic Instinct [DVD] [1992]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51BFPTrtDvL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
![Final Analysis [DVD] [1992]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41N123GGZML._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
![Basic Instinct 2 (Uncut Version) [DVD] [2006]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YDBYSH6KL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
![Sliver [DVD] [1993]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dffCfmq2L._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
![Intersection [DVD] [1994]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51F8F3764WL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
![Gloria [DVD] [1999]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KE46YM86L._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
