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Femme Fatale

Femme Fatale on DVD

Despite Brian De Palma being long criticized for portraying women as victims (or perhaps because of), Femme Fatale is all about a woman victimizing everyone around her for her own benefit.

Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) is a professional thief and con artist. The film opens with a very well planned heist involving Laure and a few of her cohorts. Their plan is to steal $10 million in diamonds at the Cannes Film Festival, but when something goes wrong, it’s Laure – and only Laure – who comes out on top. So the rest of her former team spend the rest of the movie trying to track her down to get their share of the loot.

Laure flees to America and assumes a new identity.

Several years later, she and her new husband (Peter Coyote) arrive back in Paris, but the press is disappointed that the new American Ambassador’s wife will never show her face. So Nicolas Bardo (Antonio Banderas) is hired to snap a picture of the new lady, in exchange for a hefty sum. But Laure finds out, and cons Nicolas into helping her, but he doesn’t realize she has something much bigger on her mind.

Banderas gets top billing, but this is Romijn-Stamos’ movie. She shows off her acting chops here for the first time, really (her small roles in X-Men and Rollerball were hard to judge her by), and she proves herself to be a worthy leading lady. She can be vulnerable (apparently) when she’s trying to con the men in the movie, and she can be really, really nasty when the role calls for it. Whatever she’s doing, we believe her. Banderas also shows us (again) that he’s much more than just a pretty face. This has to be one of his best performances yet.

Brian De Palma is renowned as being the master of the erotic thriller, and this is definitely a good one. The only problem (and we still haven’t decided if it’s really a problem) is the twist ending. It’s unexpected and creative, that’s for sure, but it almost seems like a cheap way out. It answers a few questions and leaves you mostly satisfied, but there’s still that sensation deep in your mind that it doesn’t seem quite right.

Despite that, Femme Fatale is a well-constructed thriller that entertains as well as intrigues. If you’re not quite sure it’s really you’re bag, see it for the performances and locations alone.

This was probably one of the bigger bombs of 2002 (but it wasn’t well publicized and didn’t have a huge budget), but Warner Bros. has given it a very nice DVD anyway. Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, the picture is sharp and clean, but looks a little soft in a few places. The audio (5.1 Dolby Digital) is very good, but there is very little surround use. Granted, there are not many opportunities, but even when there are, they’re pretty much wasted. Dialogue is clear and sound effects are audible but not shrill.

Extras include three featurettes, a “Dressed to Kill Montage,” and the North American and French theatrical trailers. The first featurette is called “From Dream to Reality” and takes us behind the scenes with Brian De Palma, who talks about his process for making the film. The second is called “Dream Within a Dream” and focuses on the production (with cast & crew interviews), and the third is “Femme Fatale: Behind the Scenes,” which, as you would imagine, takes us behind the scenes again, but is pretty much just promotional fluff. In total, the three run about 40 minutes.

This is a very nice DVD for a mostly impressive movie.

Femme Fatale, from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
114 minutes, anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) 16X9 enhanced, 5.1 Dolby Digital
Starring Antonio Banderas, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Peter Coyote, Gregg Henry
Produced by Tarak Ben Ammar and Marina Gefter
Written and directed by Brian De Palma

 

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