COLOR OF NIGHT
A film review by Jason Langlois
Copyright 1994 Jason Langlois
This is an eminently predictable film, with nothing much to redeem it. I'd suggest waiting for it to come out on video, or even not watching it at all.
The premise is a simple (and of late, often used) one. Bruce Willis plays a New York psychotherapist who has a patient commit suicide before his eyes. Faced with a lawsuit, and his own emotional troubles stemming from the incident (he can no longer see the color red--I suspect the backers of this film won't have this problem), he resigns his practice and travels to Los Angeles after bidding farewell to his elderly mentor. There, he finds himself drawn into an ersatz thriller.
Arriving in LA, he meets with a college chum who is also a successful psychotherapist, and sits in with a Monday support group. In conversation with this friend (played by Scott Bakula, late of "Quantum Leap") the next day, he finds out that someone from the group has been making death threats against his friend. Sure enough, later that evening, the friend is horribly murdered in his office.
Introduce the blustering cop (Ruben Blades), the mysterious and gorgeous young woman (Jane March), and the collection of potential killers. While it is hard to point to the direct similarities to FINAL ANALYSIS, watching this film constantly made me think of it. Fondly. (Yes, that's how bad this movie is.) Bruce Willis' character takes over his friend's practice, and also becomes an amateur sleuth trying to figure out which of the disturbed patients could have killed his friend. Along the way, he gets to enjoy a few "steamy" sex scenes with Jane March (yawn), before the grand, bloody, violent finale (yawn).
Are there any virtues in this film? Brad Dourif's portrayal of an Obsessive-Compulsive is fun to watch. Ruben Blades is also effective as the police detective (I kept wanting the film to be about him). They aren't, however, worth the price of this film. It's not the acting, but the writing, that is the death knell of this movie.
From the audience response, this movie does have some appeal. The appeal seems to center on the rare one-liner that Bruce manages to put in, and the enjoyment Ruben Blades' character brings to the screen. Really, skip this film. If you have to watch it, make it on video and you'll be much happier. For complete happiness, just avoid seeing it at all.
-- Jason Langlois jason@myra.com MYRA Systems Corp.
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