Elisabeth Shue alert!!! (Palmetto on Blu edition)

[Monterey Jack]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.ph ... t=palmetto

Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the hottest Shue has EVER looked in a movie, plus, bonus Gina Gershon!

[AndyDursin]

I watched my review copy last night.

Man what a MESS. The whole late '90s film noir genre was a hit or miss affair to begin with -- you had movies like WILD THINGS then misses like GOODBYE LOVER, the movie John Barry had his score tossed from -- but this film was a total train wreck. Was it supposed to be funny? I could never be sure how much of the film was supposed to be taken seriously -- or not.

You're right MJ it's great to see Elisabeth Shue and Gina Gershon in smoldering scope, but both are miscast, especially Shue. Coming out of LEAVING LAS VEGAS she netted a handful of lead roles and this, at least, gave her the chance to "do something different" but she was entirely miscast and out of her element playing the femme fatale.

The ending I liked but this seemed like a real mismash of styles from the director to the writer and cast with none of them seemingly on the same page.

[Monterey Jack]

You're right MJ it's great to see Elisabeth Shue and Gina Gershon in smoldering scope, but both are miscast, especially Shue. Coming out of LEAVING LAS VEGAS she netted a handful of lead roles and this, at least, gave her the chance to "do something different" but she was entirely miscast and out of her element playing the femme fatale.

This is a movie that would have been immeasurably improved had its pair of leading ladies simply swapped roles. As sexy as Shue looks, she simply lacks the teasing smolder of a genuine old-school femme fatale, and the sultry Gershon in essentially the Barbara Bel Geddes "good girl" role?!

[AndyDursin]

EXACTLY. I guess I'd say Gershon was superior in the "good girl" part than Shue was on the other end, but things would've made more sense if they just swapped roles.

[Monterey Jack]

Even on a purely prurient level, I wouldn't bother picking this up, as the "open matte" fullscreen version on the old DVD offered up a bit more of Elisabeth's bod at the bottom of the screen as randy Woody "frisks" her enthusiastically.

[Monterey Jack]

EXACTLY. I guess I'd say Gershon was superior in the "good girl" part than Shue was on the other end, but things would've made more sense if they just swapped roles.

The lame Tony Scott remake of The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3 is also like this...it would have been so much better with John Travolta in the Walter Matthau role, and Denzel Washington in the Robert Shaw one. Travolta's mugging "bad guy" turns have always been laughable.

[TaranofPrydain]

EXACTLY. I guess I'd say Gershon was superior in the "good girl" part than Shue was on the other end, but things would've made more sense if they just swapped roles.

I seem to recall reading Roger Ebert's print review stating exactly the same thing, with Ebert arguing that having the casting of the female parts in the film the way it was would have been akin to a 50s noir casting Doris Day as the femme fatale and Barbara Stanwyck as the honest one.

[Monterey Jack]

I seem to recall reading Roger Ebert's print review stating exactly the same thing, with Ebert arguing that having the casting of the female parts in the film the way it was would have been akin to a 50s noir casting Doris Day as the femme fatale and Barbara Stanwyck as the honest one.

From Ebert's review...

The casting is another problem. Gina Gershon and Elisabeth Shue are the wrong way around. Gershon is superb as a lustful, calculating femme fatale (she shimmers with temptation in ''Bound'' and ''This World, Then the Fireworks''). Shue is best at heartfelt roles. Imagine Barbara Stanwyck waiting faithfully behind the easel while Doris Day seduces the hero, and you'll see the problem.

Shue LOOKS utterly spectacular in the movie, the kind of woman sweaty, desperate men would do anything to possess, but she plays the role like a teenage girl who watched an old 40s noir on Turner Classic Movies and tries to playfully seduce her boyfriend by acting out a scene from the movie. It's so fundamentally not her persona. Still, you appreciate the effort.