THE REAL MCCOY
A film review by Jon Webb
Copyright 1993 Jon Webb
I decided Kim Basinger must be taken more seriously as an actress if she's smart enough to turn down BOXING HELENA, at the risk of her personal fortune, so I went to see THE REAL MCCOY. I hoped it would be a ripoff of POINT OF NO RETURN.
But it is not. The problem is that it is not an action film, and only vaguely a conventional film about a female cat burglar bank robber. Instead, the story revolves around Basinger's relationship with her son -- it seems even famous bank robbers have sons, if they are women.
Sigh. How I wish Hollywood would get out of this mold of having to mix a little of conventional women's roles into every film they make with a woman star. POINT OF NO RETURN would have been better if Bridget Fonda hadn't felt the draw of conventional relationships quite so strongly (why couldn't she end up sophisticated and happy like James Bond?), and this movie would have been better if the role Basinger's son would play hadn't been so obvious. (Hint: She gets out of jail, and wants to go straight. Some bad guys want her to rob another bank. She loves her son. So what do the bad guys do?)
I thought the role for Basinger was actually pretty good, though. She gets to play a more three-dimensional character than she has in any other recent film. She reminds you of why she has become famous; she really can act, though between this film and BOXING HELENA, she's not getting offered roles that will take her any place.
-- J
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