What can I say about this film, except it is the most bizarre
picture of the year, especially since it pretty much came out
of nowhere. Director Brian De Palma has dabbled with the
bizarre before, as he did in the John Lithgow picture
"Raising Cain", but he has never made anything so
noir and unusual as "Femme Fatale", a smart, though
sometimes beleaguering picture that caught me completely off guard.
The film opens with--get this--a diamond heist at the Cannes
Film Festival. How great is that? Before we are
ten minutes into the film, we see Rebecca Romijn-Stamos
(looking gorgeous as ever), engaged in some lesbian activity
with a star of one of the films showing at the festival.
The goal is to remove a $10 million dollar diamond dress the
actress is wearing and switch it with a phony garment.
Her accomplices are Eriq Ebouaney and Edouard Montoute.
Alas, she double-crosses the two and runs off with the
diamonds.
After a run in with one of the men she played, she is taken in
by a couple who believe she is their daughter. Of
course, she isn't, merely a woman who looks identical to her.
And, when the real daughter shows up, the real plot of the
film begins. Antonion Banderas co-stars as a
professional photographer who becomes entangled with Stamos,
and Peter Coyote is an ambassador from the United States who
also plays a pivotal role. I cannot reveal anything else
about the plot because it will take away too much from the
initial viewing experience. I will say this,
however--there is something in the first five minutes of the
film that you must catch in order to understand the ending of
the film. It is mentioned in passing and I never gave it
another moment's thought until I was trying to piece together
the ending.
The only flaw with this picture is the pacing. We
sometimes find ourselves bored and ready for a break from the
endless intrigue and mystery. I assume Brian De Palma
was going for a film noir type of deal, kind of like the old
intrigue movies from the fifties and sixties, and he certainly
pulled it off, but he sometimes stretches it a little too far.
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is beautiful to watch on-screen, and
though she is not as gifted an actress as most, she manages to
hold her own nicely. Antonion Banderas is wonderful in
this film, one of his best pictures in a long while,
especially when he lowers his voice to try and persuade Stamos
to let him into her hotel room. Ebouaney and Montoute
make fantastic villains, though their involvement in the
primary plot of the film is very minimal. In fact, when
you boil it down, "Femme Fatale" shows how one
moment in a person's life can alter their life and the lives
of all around them forever. You wouldn't expect that
from the opening heist, which is beautifully done, I might
add.
Director Brian De Palma has another winner on his hands, and
this film was given a considerably wide release considering
the nature of the film and quickness of the publicity. I
had never even heard of this film until a month of so ago.
"Femme Fatale" has a few flaws, but delivers on
numerous levels and is one heck of a smart thriller.
