BODY OF EVIDENCE
A film review by Serdar Yegulalp
Copyright 1997 Serdar Yegulalp
CAPSULE: MST3K NC-17.
For better or worse, the appearance of BASIC INSTINCT in the movie marketplace gave the greenlight to a whole slew of overheated, oversexed, underwritten thrillers. Apparently not having Joe Eszterhas as the writer doesn't change a thing, since BODY OF EVIDENCE wasn't written by him, but has a puzzling Eszterhas-ish presence all over it. In other words, it's a) really dirty and b) really, really stupid.
Madonna (first warning sign) stars in BODY OF EVIDENCE as a woman who has piles of money and no apparent job; she lives on a houseboat and likes to parade around semi-naked, presumably for the edification of the shrimp. She's been accused of having murdered an older man who was her lover. Already two classic examples of Hollywood sexism are in effect -- the first being that any woman in a movie cannot be sexual unless she's under thirty (or at least looks it), and that they usually only exist for the sake of studs or filthy rich older men. What's worse is that the movie confirms all the above, and wallows in them as well. Madonna's character is accused of forcing sex on the old goat when she knew darned well he had a heart condition. (And yes, there are the obligatory cracks from the cops about how at least he died happy. This movie leave no scummy stone unturned.)
Anyway. Willem Dafoe (very good but completely wasted) also stars as the lawyer who is doomed to run afoul of Madonna's sexuality. How do we know this? Because his character is set up with the Token Wife And Kids. How obvious is it that he's gonna cheat on her and have to fess everything up? And get kicked out of the house? And get welcomed back anyway? Don't skip to the end yet; we're just getting warmed up.
Dafoe and Madonna have a lot of sex in this movie. Most of it is about as erotic as open-heart surgery, since it involves such goodies as hot candlewax (always the kink of choice among screenwriters who don't know the first thing about *really* kinky sex) and smashed light bulbs. Don't ask.
Another thing that people are starting to realize about explicit sex in movies is that unless it is critically important to the story, it's insanely dull. What's worse is that BODY OF EVIDENCE is dull *everywhere*, not just in the sex scenes. The stuff in the courtroom is recycled ninth-hand from other bad courtroom drama scenes. The thriller business itself is ridiculous -- it involves nasal spray bottles and drugs, and Juergen Prochnow as a surly doctor. And the ending -- another homage to Eszterhas, maybe? -- is one of those endings where you can almost see the exact *frame* where one of the five or six various endings to this mess was spliced in.
The director is Uli Edel, all the more disappointing since he also directed the elegiac and powerful LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN and CHRISTIANE F. Everyone has to eat, I guess, but this isn't a meal ticket, it's leftovers.
Zero out of four nasal spray bottles filled with... jeez, just what the heck was *in* those things, anyway?
syegul@ix.netcom.com EFNet IRC: GinRei http://www.io.com/~syegul another worldly device...
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