Femme Fatale [2002] Movie Reviews on CinemaClock

I would rate this movie highly on the basis of its production values. The cinematography is beautiful and rich, as is the astounding score. Looking over a few of the other reviews entered here, I notice that the striking music during the heist is incorrectly identified as Ravel's "Bolero." It is not. Rather, it is an original piece by the movie's composer who has done a very impressive and skillfull job of creating a Bolero-like piece, which is both structurally and dramatically identical to Bolero, but which, although intentionally similar, is different harmonically and melodically from Ravel's work. I particularly liked the fact that the "movie music" behind the film-within-a-film that was showing in the Cannes theater and the heist music were at the same tempo so that intercutting between the two matched perfectly without missing a beat..

A pretty good film, but there were some flaws. DePalma's stylish thriller is incredible in the beginning. Not much dialogue, beautifully filmed action sequences set to an incredible score of Ravel's Bolero. There is an amazing use of water imagery in this movie which has me perplexed. Lots of water trickling over glass facades, fish tanks flooding over. Very nice. Another scene in the film is reminiscent of Hitchcock's 1959 thriller "North by Northwest". DePalma borrows heavily from Hitchcock's bag of cinematography, all to great effect. It's a shame that partway through this film and especially at the end, there seem to be a lapse of this greatness in not only the actors but in the filming and storyline. This could have been a really great movie, but something went wrong. Perhaps the inclusion of John Stamo's voice was a sign that something was crucially wrong here. I still think this was worth seeing, I was really pleasently surprised as I expected Hollywood and instead got a bit of Cannes mixed in. Worth a look on video for most but I recommend the big screen for Die hard DePalma fans. (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is incendiary in a couple of the scenes, well worth the price of admission) and as Conan would exclaim "Stammmmmmmos! ".

This is a superbly directed, photographed and edited film. Writer/director Brian De Palma brings his 'Hitchcock' style of filmmaking to a near masterpiece level. The camera and editing moves the story along in a stylish and creative way that creates enough suspense and mystery to keep me hooked and entertained. The story moves along without a lot of dialogue from the actors - which is probably a good thing since the 'stars' of this film are cast more for their good looks and sex-appeal than their acting abilities. Where the film faltered for me is not so much the significant plot twist but in the way that De Palma asks the viewer to buy his extremely forced and contrived happy ending. Wonderful use of 'Bolero' at the beginning of the movie!