The Dog of Netflix

Woody: "I thought I was one step ahead of her the whole time, but she played me like Chinese chess."
Gina: "Checkers."

One great thing about Netflix is that, since you're paying for a service and not for each particular film, you get to see some movies that you wouldn't necessarily pay for. Sometimes they're better than you might think.

And then there's Palmetto, easily the worst film we've ever gotten in the mail. Easy phony kidnapping plot turns real, with all the fingers pointing at the patsy. Starring Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Shue and Gina Gershon, this movie wants to be noir in the worst way. Which is exactly how it goes about everything.

Confession time: I rented this primarily to see Elizabeth Shue play a femme fatale. I've liked her in other movies -- Adventures in Babysitting always springs to mind, but I liked her in The Saint, too -- and I've always found her very easy to look at. But man oh man is she lousy in this. Clumsy double entendres, clumsy seductions -- it's almost like she's acting in a porn movie, without any of the nudey bits. I think she's supposed to be insane, but I'm not quite sure. That isn't a good sign.

And Harrelson, I know, is capable of much more than he shows here. Here, he's supposed to be a former reporter, an innocent man released from two years of wrongful imprisonment, but he comes off as a dimbulb without a shred of competence in anything he tries. He can't even lie well. It's like he's playing Woody from Cheers, but in way over his head and without the least glimmer of charm.

Gershon is pretty much wasted as the nice girl staying at home while Harrelson screws everything up. Her first scene is a ham-handed smouldering reunion on the street after he's released, but after that, she's whitebread. Why hire Gina Gershon to be so bland?

With so much bad acting, much of the blame has to fall on the director... um.. looking it up... Volker Schlondorff. IMDB says that most of his films (with the exception of The Handmaid's Tale, which I liked -- although I wonder how much I'd like it after having read the book, but at the very least, introduced me to Margaret Atwood) aren't in English. Suddenly everything falls into place.

Well, I've rambled on long enough, and you've probably gotten my point: Palmetto sucks. And you'll giggle during the steamy parts because it's so damn stupid.

Rob