Shattered (1991) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a fantastic suspense thriller, rich in Hitchcock influence and filled with numerous twists and turns. It is by far the best mystery in recent years. Tom Berenger is a recovering amnesiac who has survived a near-fatal car crash with his wife, Greta Scacchi. After undergoing successful reconstructive face surgery, Berenger tries to piece his life together to recall his identity. The partner of a high-powered San Francisco architectural firm, Berenger begins to feel out of place when he can't seem to remember his old designs or his friends. One by one, those closest to him secretly tell him contradictory details about his life and his marriage. In some accounts, he treated his wife badly, while in others he was a good husband. Although the stories don't add up, Berenger is certain of one fact - his wife recently cheated on him with a shadowy man named Jack Stanton while the couple and their friends were vacationing in Mexico. With the help of a private investigator, played by Bob Hoskins, Berenger discovers that Stanton is still alive and that his accident may have actually been an orchestrated attempt against his life. Torn between who to believe, his instincts and his paranoia, Berenger delves deeper into his past only to find a stunning and shocking conclusion - that either himself or someone close to him has killed in the past... and must inevitably kill again to protect a dark and terrifying secret.

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Writer/director Wolfgang Petersen (Air Force One, In the Line of Fire) cranks up the suspense in this riveting thriller that will "keep you guessing [up until its] shockingly unexpectedending" (The Washington Post)! A stellar castincluding Tom Berenger, Bob Hoskins, Greta Scacchi, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer and Corbin Bernsenbreathes life into this gripping film noir about the survivor of a car accident who begins to suspect his near-death was no accident.Dan Merrick (Berenger) struggles to reconstruct his life after a disfiguring accident leaves him without much of a memoryand in the care of a wife (Scacchi) and friends who seem to be repainting his past! And as Merrick begins to reconstruct his life, strange flashes of memory begin to surface, each drawing him further into a maze of corruption that could prove more deadly than any accident!

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The Hitmen Diaries: Charlie Valentine (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)Let me start by pointing out that most of the five-star reviews for this film are by people who suspiciously have reviewed only one movie on Amazon: this one. So possibly fake reviews aside, Charlie Valentine is a fairly average low-budget crime movie.
Pros: Raymond J. Barry delivers a great acting performance as Charlie Valentine, an aging gangster that's forced to flee town after a heist goes bad. Lisa Catara is painfully sexy as Valentine's love interest, though I was disappointed she wasn't used more in the film. There's also a great deal of eye candy thanks to a number of strip club scenes (a requirement for straight to DVD movies these days). The score for the film was surprisingly good, and the cinematography was better than most Redbox flicks.
Cons: For all of the big names that appear in this film, the overwhelming majority are underused. Tom Berenger is front and center on the DVD, despite getting a grand total of two minutes of screen time the entire movie. Keith David has a "blink and you missed him" role as well. James Russo of Donnie Brasco fame serves up a flat performance as the mob boss on the hunt for Valentine. Steven Bauer, who has packed on a good 80 pounds since filming Traffic, delivers a forgettable "where's my check" acting performance.
The trailers make the film seem so much better than it really is, and even the Amazon description of the film isn't very accurate. And for supposedly being an experienced gunslinger, Valentine constantly has his guard down around his enemies.
Charlie Valentine is worth renting just for Raymond Barry's performance alone. Otherwise, it's a run of the mill low-budget gangster flick filled with plenty of plot holes, and it doesn't really stand out. Give this one a rent before buying.

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Stiletto (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)I mostly watched Stiletto for Stana Katic(Castle) as she's an absolutely thrilling actress and she's just wonderful to watch.
At first watch I was lightly appalled by the large amount of bloody, gore-ish, violence, but I quickly grew to love it. It has a interesting plotline, murders within a gang with a killer who doesn't mind leaving behind her perfectly shaped tracks. And I mean how many people kill with a gorgeous, bejeweled stiletto now a days? So Raina is out killing members of a gang. Why? Who freaking knows. But she does it so well that even though they know who it is(well one of the cops anyways), she remains effectively out of their grasp.
Stana portrays heartbreak and fury perfectly. And the rest of the cast does exceptionally well too. The crazy girlfriend who really just has relationship issues that she wants to fix is violent as hell. Her boyfriend is a maniacal gang killer. And their gang boss is in love with her. A perfect watch when you're really in the mood for a good action flick.

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Shoot to Kill (1988) Review

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(More customer reviews)A rare action movie that manages to rise above its formula, Shoot to Kill delivers mystery, exciting action, and beautiful cinematography.
Tom Berenger has done many action/thriller movies, but Sidney Poitier steps out for a change of pace in this movie. Its formula is "double-fish-out-of-water buddy picture", and it stays pretty close to the formula throughout the movie.
Poitier plays an FBI agent who blew an arrest and wound up with a dead civilian, and has tracked the (unseen) thief/killer into the Pacific Northwest. Berenger plays a tracker, whose girlfriend runs a trail guide business. The girlfriend (Kirstie Alley in an outdoor role!) has taken her latest group of travelers out into the woods, and Poitier believes that the killer is among them. If that's not bad enough, a deadly storm looks like it's coming on.
The real fun in this movie is in the first half, where you see all of the men in Kirstie Alley's group. All of them are recognizable character actors, and most of them have played villains in other movies before. So which one of them is the killer? I guessed wrong the first time.
Unfortunately, this gets revealed about halfway through, and the movie returns to the formula. However, the excellent performances and lush cinematography elevate it beyond the norm. I thought Poitier did a great job as the city-based FBI agent, and Alley was surprisingly good as the trail guide.
Definitely worth a watch. Or two.

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Sliver (Unrated Edition) (1993) Review

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(More customer reviews)Sharon Stone and SLIVER made a lot of sense after BASIC INSTINCT. It gave her a chance to be the hunted instead of the hunter, and also promised a whole lot of male nudity this time around instead of her being revealed so much. Eszterhas was back on board as a screenwriter, and the film was designed to be a sexual thriller about modern voyeurism with video cameras. SLIVER the book was not Ira Levin's best novel (cheesy fun but nothing classic), and I found myself not minding this movie deviates from it. Anyone who's read it knows the heroine's cat saves the day in one of the silliest climaxes ever. So don't worry about the book being better or worse with this one.
The production ran in to problems especially with the ending originally planned inside a VOLCANO of all things. Test audiences hated it, and so reshoots were quickly done. Eszterhas was not happy with the changes to his original script, and some new scenes made the actors seem a little less prepared and rushed. Billy Baldwin chickened out on full frontal nudity planned for his character, and demanded his most revealing shots be cut from the final movie. Despite any changes, the movie turns out to be entertaining fluff that never quite seems as kinky as it could be. It's still a whole lot of fun, and worth it for Stone fans. There are still some interesting ideas here.
This DVD contains a European cut with more nudity and prolonged sex scenes. For the most part you'll see much more of Baldwin, since Stone carefully handled her nudity this time around (she learned quick after BASIC INSTINCT). There are no extras, and that's a real shame. I wanted to see the real ending, but no such luck. Also no trailers on the disc because they included moments from the original ending and not the new version. And oddly enough a Lords of Acid song is removed from the DVD's soundtrack. But at least we get it bigger, longer, and uncut at a reasonable price.
You like to watch, right?

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Young publishing executive Carly (Stone) takes an apartment in an exclusive "sliver" building in New York, only to learn that the previous tenant, who bore a great resemblance to Carly, died in a mysterious fall from the apartment balcony. When other tenants of the building begin to die likewise mysteriously, Carly begins to suspect that a killer may be inhabiting the building and that it may be either Zeke (Baldwin), the voyeuristic building owner with whom she's become involved romantically, or Jack (Berenger), a mystery writer with a suspicious quality.

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