Truly one of the ultimate guilty pleasure film experiences!
Plot: A woman is accused of killing a man to inherit his millions by having sex with him.
To start off, I really didn’t think Madonna’s performance in this was THAT bad. The reviews I read make it out as if she had given the worst performance of all time. The appeal which lead me to watching this movie was that I am a huge fan of Madonna’s music and a huge fan of actor Willem Dafoe, plus I knew about the notoriety so of course I absolutely had to attempt to see it. Her performance was of course ridiculous, but was it horrible? In my personal opinion, no it wasn’t but clearly she could’ve done way way better — or way way worse. One of the very few, very sparse things about this movie that were actually good were Willem Dafoe’s and Joe Mantegna’s performances, as Frank Dulaney (Dafoe) and Robert Garrett (Mantegna) respectfully. Julianne Moore was also pretty good in her supporting role, but Willem and Joe were the two that really shined.
The other thing about this movie that made it watchable was the directorial effort of Uli Edel. The direction was really stylishly done, bold and thrilling. Fantastic camerawork.
The screenplay, written by Brad Mirman, was what kept this movie from being anything more than a guilty pleasure. The writing was ridiculous, badly structured, with atrocious dialogue. Whatever plot twists there were were bogged down by off-putting erotic thriller cliches.
In conclusion, yes “Body of Evidence” is somewhat thrilling, and yes it is hardboiled, and yes it is sexy, but does that mean it’s a good movie? Not really. It’s attempts at being anything more than a guilty pleasure were down-right laughable, but does that necessarily mean this movie is un-watchable? No it does not, this movie is fun and actually somewhat watchable, even though it is beyond ridiculous.
***See the Unrated Cut!!**
My Rating: 6/10
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