Cast: Rebecca Romjin-Stamos, Antonio Banderas, Peter Coyote, Eriq Ebouaney, Edourad Montoute, Rie, Thierry Fremont
Director: Brian De Palma
Producers: Tarak Ben Ammar, Marina Gefter
Screenplay: Brian De Palma
Cinematography: Thierry Arbogast
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
U.S. Distributor: Warner Brothers
Note to Readers: This review contains a somewhat obscure spoiler about a key twist in the film. Those planning to see the movie who don't want the risk of having surprises revealed should proceed with caution.
Viewed as a serious homage to film noir, Femme Fatale is nothing short of a disaster – easily one of the worst movies of the year. Viewed as a campy parody of the genre, the movie fares better, although it's neither funny enough nor enjoyable enough to be considered watchable. Take away a hot lesbian sex scene and an arty (but nevertheless full-frontal) shot of a nude Rebecca Romjin-Stamos, and this so-called "thriller" turns into a two-hour bore.
Femme Fatale begins promisingly, with a deftly filmed diamond heist at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Posing as a photographer, Laure Ash (Romjin-Stamos), lures a bejeweled French starlet (Rie) into a bathroom for a tryst. Meanwhile, Laure's accomplice (Eriq Ebouaney) employs a switcheroo, replacing the diamonds with paste-and-glass. One shooting, one betrayal, and one suicide later, Laure is on a plane to the United States playing a victim open to the consolation of the kindly Bruce Hewitt Watts (Peter Coyote). Seven years later, Watts is the American ambassador to France and Laure is his wife. Because her former accomplice is out of prison and looking for her, she has become publicity shy. Enter photographer Nicolas Bardo (Antonio Banderas), who snaps a picture of Laure, sells it for five figures to a tabloid, then regrets his actions and tries to apologize to the injured party. This act of contrition unwittingly plunges him into a scheme of murder and double-crossing that leads to the most improbable plot "twist" since Patrick Duffy stepped out of the shower in "Dallas".
I'll give Brian De Palma credit enough to believe that he didn't expect us to take Femme Fatale completely seriously. There are times when he appears to be winking at the audience. However, I don't think he intended Femme Fatale to be seen as a pure comedy, even though all of the elements are there – bad acting; cliché-riddled, cheesy dialogue; and a plot that, like a house of cards, collapses under the weight of having too many coincidences, contrivances, and surprises. This wouldn't be a problem if Femme Fatale was funny, or at least entertaining, but, for the most part, it's simply tedious. The widely-spaced moments of laughter are buffered by long stretches in which we are forced to watch the poorly constructed storyline unravel.
Femme Fatale's big surprise is indeed unexpected, because it comes out of the blue, and ranks as one of the biggest cheats in recent cinema. If you had anything invested in the characters before this moment, you won't afterwards. There's a fine line between daring and reckless stupidity, and De Palma has strayed into the latter category. If the desired reaction was gasps, not giggles, then Femme Fatale missed the mark by a wide margin.
As is his M.O., De Palma refers to great noir efforts of the past. In Femme Fatale, the clip from Double Indemnity, which opens the movie, is an obvious blunder because it openly invites unfavorable comparisons with the older picture. It's understandable that the writer/director would feel the need to plunder the classics, because there's so little of value in what he has brought to the screen. De Palma has never been viewed as a master of originality, but he has made one great movie (The Untouchables) and several solidly entertaining ones. But, when he's bad, he's really bad, and Femme Fatale ranks with the worst he has done.
The casting is a mystery. Why Rebecca Romjin-Stamos? Sure, she's hot, but so are 75% of the under-30 actresses floating around in Hollywood, most of which have more acting talent than Romjin-Stamos displays here. Antonio Banderas doesn't help matters. Not only do he and Romjin-Stamos display no chemistry, but his performance is so low-key that there are times when he seems to have forgotten what movie he's in.
Whatever De Palma is trying to do with Femme Fatale, he fails. Rather than sitting through this mess of a movie, I would suggest renting John Dahl's The Last Seduction (with Linda Fiorentino as a great femme fatale), which successfully navigates many of the curves where De Palma crashes and burns.
© 2002 James Berardinelli