Color of Night (1994)

reviewed by
Ted Prigge


COLOR OF NIGHT (1994)
A Film Review by Ted Prigge
Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge

Director: Richard Rush Writers: Matthew Chapman and Billy Ray Starring: Bruce Willis, Jane March, Reuben Blades, Lesley Ann Warren, Lance Henrikson, Brad Douriff, Kevin J. O'Connor, Scott Bakula, Eriq La Salle

I want my life back after this one.

This film isn't even good enough to mock in one sitting like Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space." That's how bad it is (I'm not saying it's as bad as that classic, but this is a contender for the worst film of the 90s). But still, if you're watching it on your VCR and you have your thumb on the fast-forwarding button, you'll have a great time mocking this utter piece of dogcrap.

I saw this on one of those free previews we get, and luckily (ahem!) I got to see the director's cut. My question is: Which 20 minutes of crap WASN'T in the film? This is film is so awful that you could take any 20 minutes out and it would make it better no matter what. The plot doesn't matter. The mystery isn't even worth thinking about. The lesbian scene isn't really worth anything (disappointing for perverts and useless to anything the film is about). I mean, this film is only good for an MST3K episode - but one where they edit a lot out to make it somewhat watchable. Or at least THEY have a fast-forwarding button. This one would do these guys in if shown in its entirety.

The "plot," or whatever we want to call it, centers around a psychiatrist (Bruce Willis) who looses his Freudian faith after one of his patients jumps out the window of his office near the top of a large building (a cool shot - best since "The Hudsucker Proxy" - but not really worth the time it takes to see it since the rest of the movie blows). He looses the ability to see red (which has no effect on any aspect of the story, but it's there for the title) and moves to L.A. to shack up with his psychiatrist friend (Scott Bakula), who hosts a Monday Evening Group Therapy session and has a Type A personality. Then he's murdered in a ridiculous scene where he's stabbed about 30 times of so. We see everything. I think I got the point after the second stabbing that he's gonna die.

Bruce takes over the group 'cause something points to one of the members of the Monday Group doing it. In this group, we get nuts who give nuts a bad name: Lesley Ann Warren is typecast as an oversexed Black Widdow type who's hanging out with this younger chick who makes her happy (heh heh - let's guess what happens betwixt these two, eh?); Lance Henrikson is some old guy who can't get over his wife's death or something; Kevin O'Connor is some freaky-ass artist who's big problem seems to be that he can't act to save his life; Brad Douriff, a once-Oscar nominee, is a lawyer who autistically counts everything and gives us neurotics a bad name; and then there's some guy who doesn't even look like a guy who never talks. Let's guess which one's the rotten apple, ok?

Also in on the "story" are a Chicana stereotype renegade police officer of some type (Reuben Blades, who gives overactors a bad name) and a semi-attractive woman who shows up out of nowhere and ends up having "steamy sex" with Bruce, giving him a chance to show off his little pecker in a pool scene. They have sex for about 10 minutes straight for some reason and it's not very erotic, in fact very nauseating.

The film goes on literally FOREVER!!! It's like a non-stop crapfest for 2 hours and 20 minutes. You don't care about anyone but Bruce 'cause he's Bruce and that's it. There's a billion unnecessary scenes, which if cut would make this film about 5 minutes long. There's a billion scenes of nothing but talking but not saying anything (Did I mention how horrible the script is? One of them wrote "Volcano," that's how bad it is). He talks to each of them and the story stays still. Woody Allen said in "Annie Hall" that a relationship is like a shark; it has to constantly be moving or it just dies. Well, I'd like to apply this thinking to film - it always has to be in constant motion. And what we have in the case of "Color of Night" is a dead shark. The story goes nowhere and just wastes time. At least "Plan 9 From Outer Space" moved a bit.

To waste more time and to get some horny teenagers to like this, we get a totally unnecessary lesbian relationship between Lesley Ann Warren and this girl-friend of hers. They have an anti-climactic and barely satisfying "lesbian scene" which ends in what's supposed to be a twist but turns out to be as anti-climactic as the rest of the film.

The acting's horrible. The script is crap. And the direction - oh my god!! Richard Rush, the director, made "The Stunt Man" 14 years earlier, a film I've yet to see but has been pretty much unanimously hailed as a masterpiece of celluloid. What in the hell was he on when he made this? Did he actually look at it afterwards and say, "Cut. Print. Let's eat." If I were him, I would have done what Woody Allen did when he saw the first final product of "September": throw it the hell out. Of course, Woody started over. I would've thrown it out and made a whole other film.

So, basically this is a worthless film, right? Well, I guess the one positive note is the suicide scene. Yes, it's anti-climactic, but it's cool to see her fall. And I guess you could say it's consitstent: it's crap the whole way through. And I can give it a bonus point for using the nailgun as a weapon - although it was already used in "Lethal Weapon 2."

So, pretty much, this film is devoid of any goodness and is destined to be looked on and cherished as a masterpiece in pure shit and to be re-issued as one of the great horrible films of all time. Good job, Rush!

MY RATING (out of 5): a flat ZERO!!!

Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/hills/8335/


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