Jade

Alright enough dickin’ around let’s talk about Jade. 

This is what writer Joe Eszterhas followed up Showgirls with and what William Friedkin did after Blue Chips.  So in my eyes they were both coming off of some of their best work.  The only thing is Friedkin rewrote a lot of the script but I still think you can see a bunch of Eszterhas in this.  I mean the plot does deal with sex and murder which is his specialty. 

This very rich art dealer/collector guy gets bumped off and assistant D.A. David Corelli (David Caruso (King of New York, CSI’s)) gets called in to solve the case.  He checks out some of the clues at the crime scene including small silver jewelry boxes filled with pubic hair (see what I mean about Eszterhas leaving a very clear fingerprint behind?).  One of the boxes has a Chinese character on it that Corelli eventually finds out means Jade.  Upon further investigation at this art guy’s other house on the ocean they find out that it’s a “fuck house”.  There are sex toys, drugs and cameras set up to catch the action.  So Corelli and his team spend the movie piecing shit together and trying to figure out the killer’s identity.  The clues seem to point to Corelli’s ex lover Trina (Linda Fiorentino (The Last Seduction)) who’s now married to Chazz Palminteri (A Bronx Tale (you know, I think I saw him one time in Atlantic City a bunch of years ago but didn’t get a good look, he might have been with a Baldwin too, not sure which one though)).

I would describe this one as a Basic Instinct lite.  There’s a possible lady killer that’s on the loose ‘cause the cops can’t get anything solid on her to bring her in, the head investigator has feelings for the suspected murderer, the killer and/or their henchmen keep fucking with our lead, there’s a car chase, it takes place in San Francisco (an Eszterhas trademark) and there are others.  So the one big thing missing is that Trina isn’t Catherine Tramell.  She’s not this dominating woman that fucks with everyone because she likes to play games.  She’s not a lightweight either and can hold her own but she’s certainly not this criminal mastermind.

But enough comparing it to reigning champ. There’s a lot of good stuff in Jade and it can stand on its own.  For starters David Caruso.  Sure he may be lacking on the physical side with his scrawny build but man does he make up for it with his take-no-bullshit attitude and fierce drive.  He has command in his scenes and never doubts himself.  This isn’t to say that he doesn’t get into trouble or that shit always goes his way.  Caruso is great at acting pissed off and scared shitless at the same time.  A prime example would be when someone cuts the break line on his car and he’s careening down the San Francisco hills barely being able to steer clear of other vehicles.  It ends spectacularly too with the car flipping over violently making it one of the best car crashes I’ve ever seen. 

Everyone else in this does a pretty good job as well.  Fiorentino does her brassy dame act but way more understated and held back than in The Last Seduction which works well here.  Based on the only three movies I’ve seen her in I guess she has sort of a deadpan personality.  She doesn’t show a lot emotion or range of emotions.  It’s fine in this one because Fiorentino’s supposed to be distant and a mystery but in Men in Black (which is supposed to be a comedy as far as I can tell and not a sexy thriller) she plays it the same way.  So I guess it’s just who she is.

The film’s shot really well and the pacing is great but this is Billy Friedkin so I’ve come to expect that.  He’s a master at blending real world type police work and outrageous hard hitting action.  Like there’s a scene where Caruso is meeting this woman that’s a witness in the case and he’s waiting for her in a restaurant.  He can see her out the window crossing the street but then out of nowhere a car runs her over.  And this has to be the nastiest hit by a car ever filmed.  This woman goes flying and even hits another car that’s parked.  Then they show her getting run over for a second time!  It’s fucking horrific to watch.  This is the setup for a damn good car chase with Caruso in pursuit.  The only problem with it is that the bad guy turns down this street straight into a Chinese parade slowing the chase down too much for too long because it’s totally packed and they can only crawl along.  That section really needed to be much shorter.  But other than that it’s a well executed car chase.

So yeah, Friedkin does a bang up job with this piece.  The mystery itself is handled great too because even though the evidence is stacked against Trina there’s still room for doubt.  Things seem to progress pretty organically and there isn’t this bullshit moment that they have in a lot of whodunits where our hero thinks the case is over until he talks to someone or thinks of something suddenly at the very end that sends him into a panic realizing who the real killer is.  I can’t stand that shit most of the time.  It comes off as desperation like in case they didn’t fool you all during the movie they’ll throw in this one last thing to make sure that they get you.  They kinda want you to feel like an asshole and catch you off guard by taking a cheap shot.  It’s just as bad as the ol’ it-was-all-just-a-dream gimmick. 

Anyway the bottom line is I think this picture is good.  I was expecting it to be pretty bad because it totally tanked at the box office and I haven’t read one good thing about it.  I remember when I saw the trailer years ago it looked like one of those sexy-as-shit trailers like Original Sin.  And there is a good amount of sexy type stuff in this but it’s not a terribly sexy movie.  There are plenty of thrills though and they’re well done.  I was pleasantly surprised and found myself getting really into it.  Friedkin called this his favorite film at one point and while I think that honor goes to To Live and Die in L.A. it’s still a solid and really fun sexy thriller.  I recommend it.

Sex Scenes: Two.  There are also some steamy photos and security camera style sex as well.

After Sex Scenes: One.  It’s brief but I counted it.

Strange Cameos: A mustachioed Michael Biehn (Grindehouse: Planet Terror, The Terminator) plays one of the investigating officers. 

Richard Crenna (Body Heat, Rambo: First Blood Part II) plays the governor of California.  He’s really great because he’s such an asshole in this and he also has the line, “I do the fucking, I never get fucked”.

Angie Everhart is one of the hookers that frequented the fuck house and she played the head vampire in Bordello of Blood.

My man Victor “Egg Shen” Wong (Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Emperor) is the guy that Caruso takes the small silver box to, to get some info.