Confidential

(Bruce Pittman, 1986)
Again, here's a slick piece of hackwork that shows an improbable knowledge of film history. The generic noir trappings are familiar and somewhat unsatisfying, splitting the difference between fine period detail and a super-defined, slickly abstracted visual sensibility that reminds me more than anything of "The Big Crimewave". There's also a nod to "Psycho" in the protagonist-rotation at the end of the first act, and a you-do-the-math final shot that actually invokes "Citizen Kane". The plot machinations can be enjoyable although the stakes are depressingly low, and they should have kept us with the protagonists, OUTSIDE the walls of that scary old house: maybe they didn't want to play the country-folk-as-Other game, but it was a bad decision to drop the aura of mystery for a bunch of questionable domestic drama. And producer Anthony Kramreither just can't make a movie without slathering on the strippers to no great purpose. Still, it's got a good eye for detail and some cool moments.