Ingeniously twisty and audaciously twisted, Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale qualifies as one of the most exuberantly mischievous self-parodies ever attempted by a major American filmmaker.
Femme Fatale (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:133
Fresh:64
Rotten:69
Average Rating:5.4/10
Consensus: The thriller Femme Fatale is overheated, nonsensical, and silly.
Runtime: 1 hr 54 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Synopsis: Director Brian De Palma returns to familiar terrain with FEMME FATALE, a loopy, sexy thriller that plays like a "greatest hits" of the controversial director's tics, tricks, and obsessions. Here... Director Brian De Palma returns to familiar terrain with FEMME FATALE, a loopy, sexy thriller that plays like a "greatest hits" of the controversial director's tics, tricks, and obsessions. Here the story follows a beautiful seductress (Rebecca Romjin-Stamos) who betrays her cohorts during an elaborate diamond heist at the Cannes Film Festival, then disappears to America under the stolen identity of a dead French girl to whom she bears an uncanny resemblance. Seven years later she returns to Paris when her American husband (Peter Coyote) accepts a position as French ambassador. That's when Antonio Banderas, as a goofy photographer, enters the picture and becomes her lover and dupe in another elaborate scheme. Along the way there's steamy lesbianism, misogynistic violence, split-screens, double-crosses, time loops, VERTIGO-style stalking, a hot striptease, and plenty of dark comedy and sly homage to other films, all in the classic De Palma tradition. His fans should be thrilled, as this harkens back to the director's DRESSED TO KILL, BLOW OUT, and BODY DOUBLE days. Novices should prepare to throw credibility to the wind and just enjoy the stylistic bravado, the twists and turns, and the ravishing Stamos--who backs up her beauty with a captivating, enigmatic performance. [More]
Starring: Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Antonio Banderas, Peter Coyote, Gregg Henry
Starring: Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Antonio Banderas, Peter Coyote, Gregg Henry, Rie Rasmussen, Eriq Ebouaney
Director: Brian De Palma
Director: Brian De Palma
Screenwriter: Brian De Palma
Producer: Tarak Ben Ammar, Marina Gefter
Composer: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Studio: Warner Bros.
Reviews for Femme Fatale
An erotic thriller that's neither too erotic nor very thrilling, either.
Enjoyable enough to give a whirl, especially for its sexy nature, fun style and over-the-top, but effective, ending.
It's far from a great movie, but there's nothing like it on the current scene.
It's full of cheesy dialogue, but great trashy fun that finally returns De Palma to his pulpy thrillers of the early '80s.
The thief isn't wicked enough to make a tasty antihero, the photographer isn't sleazy or sympathetic enough to evoke sympathy, and nobody else even registers.
Long-winded, self-indulgent and more than a tad condescending, Brian De Palma’s latest looks like art. But as the film reminds, appearances can be deceiving.
At least Femme Fatale has an apt title - "femme" because it's about a woman and "fatale" because it makes you want to jump out a window.
More people walked out of our screening of Femme Fatale than did in last year's Freddy Got Fingered.
Hitchcock...I mean De Palma, blows it again with this tedious garbage. Romijn-Stamos has the makings of a decent actress, but she is all wrong for this role.
[Romijin-Stamos] knows her way around a wisecrack, and Femme Fatale may do for her what Basic Instinct did for Sharon Stone.
De Palma has done some good stuff and some bad stuff in his time, but rarely has he done anything as screwed up as this.
The plot snakes and forks like a mountain road, because it doesn't have anywhere important to go.
A feast for hard-core movie or De Palma buffs (and Romijn-Stamos junkies) but a famine for anyone looking for a good story.
Latest News for Femme Fatale
July 28, 2006:
Trailer Bulletin: Hartnett, Scarlett & Swank in De Palma's "Black Dahlia"
Master of suspense / veteran storyteller / admirer of Hitchcock / Brian De Palma has a new film on the horizon, his first since 2002's "Femme Fatale," and it looks to... More...
July 20, 2005:
Get Your First Beautifully Gruesome Peek at "Slither"
Chalk it up to a relatively slow news week, but the crew over at CHUD.com just got an exclusive peek at this crazy gory freaked-out monster from an upcoming horror flick called... More...
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