In storytelling, especially in filmmaking, once the plot takes a wrong turn there's no going back. And more than a few promising movies have started out well only to spoil things with an unsatisfying conclusion.
Two new films exemplify the perils of inconsistent plotting, though in both cases the directors could blame the authors for storytelling blunders, since they are based on well-known novels:
"PALMETTO,"
a dark comic thriller, is, in its way, almost as disappointing — especially since it so deliriously sends up the noir film genre during its first hour.
Unfortunately, things go as awry here as in "Oscar and Lucinda" with a turn toward the absurd at the end that pays obvious homage to "Sunset Boulevard" — but in a truly bewildering way.
As with most films of this particular genre, the lead character is a dope who thinks he's smarter than he is. This time, it's Harry Barber (Woody Harrelson) who gets in way over his head when he falls in with the wrong crowd.
Having been recently released from prison, the former newspaperman has a chance to go straight with his faithful artist girlfriend, Nina (Gina Gershon). But wouldn't you know, he instead meets Rhea Malroux (Elisabeth Shue), a beautiful, mysterious blonde who has a business proposition for him.
Rhea and her vixenish stepdaughter Odette (Chloe Sevigny) are conniving to swindle their husband and father, millionaire Felix Malroux (Rolf Hoppe), out of $500,000. They plan to fake a kidnapping of Odette, and they need Harry to provide the threatening phone voice.
And the money drop-off seems to go OK, but when Harry returns to his hideout to count the loot, he gets a rather unpleasant surprise — Odette's body on the bed. So he goes on the lam. From there, things go downhill.
Veteran director Volker Schlondorff ("The Tin Drum"), making his first real attempt at "mainstream" filmmaking, has a pretty firm grasp on things until they're undone by E. Max Frye's muddled plotting.
And though almost everyone in the cast is good (especially Gershon and Sevigny), Harrelson's a little too good at playing the dumb guy. And Shue's bit at the end mars an otherwise subtle turn.
"Palmetto" is rated R for violence, profanity, simulated sex, vulgar sex talk and references, gore and brief female partial nudity.