Noir November: Masquerade (1988)

I guess it could be easily forgotten among many other slick thrillers from the past few decades, but Masquerade is a very enjoyable piece of fun. Any experienced viewer should be able to tell where the twists and turns are going to appear, yet that doesn't detract from the experience. In fact, seeing how the pieces are put in place to create the winding path of the plot is one of the main attractions, with another being the decent cast.

Rob Lowe stars as Tim Whalen, a young man who is gaining quite a reputation for his work in the sailing world. He's also getting to sleep with Kim Cattrall (who plays the wife of his boss), so it seems like a sweet life. But when he meets the lovely Olivia Lawrence (Meg Tilly) he falls in love. It maybe helps to know that she's megarich, which immediately casts aspersions on Tim's intentions. The couple find themselves under quite a bit of scrutiny, from Cattrall's character, from Olivia's horrible stepfather (John Glover), and from a local police officer (Doug Savant) who still holds a candle for Olivia. It's not long until some treachery is afoot.

Written by Dick Wolf, the script for Masquerade is clever enough to deliver information, both overtly and covertly, to the viewer, while never seeming too clever for its own good. It's both Hitchcockian and also enjoyable, polished nonsense.

Director Bob Swaim knows how to handle the material, and cuts his workload in half by getting the right people in the right roles. Using the attractive location, the attractive leads, and a very good score from John Barry, he keeps everything light and entertaining throughout, with most of the fun stemming from figuring out just who is due to get one over on who.

Lowe is excellent in the lead role, all charm and confidence. He also remains pretty likeable, even when his motives are called into question. Tilly is as lovely as ever, and she had quite a run of movies at this time that made the most of her fragile beauty (also check out Psycho II and Impulse if you can). Glover is always worth watching, in my opinion, as is Cattrall, although I admittedly like to see both onscreen for different reasons, and Savant does a decent enough job with his character, even if he is the weakest of the leads. Dana Delany and Erik Holland provide solid support, and the Long Island location is the perfect setting for such potential soap opera shenanigans.

This isn't a film that wants to take you down too many dark alleyways. It's not a film that will shock you with the revelations that it lines up, mainly throughout the last two thirds of the runtime. It's just a decent bit of entertainment, and it does exactly what it sets out to do.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Influence-Masquerade-Rob-Lowe/dp/B008FYZHDI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1415565747&sr=8-2&keywords=masquerade+movie

HouseSitter (1992)

The movie that reunited director Frank Oz with star Steve Martin may not be as great as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but that's a tough act to follow. This isn't as sharp, it's not as smart and it's just not as funny. However, I've always found HouseSitter to be an easy movie to rewatch and enjoy. It's not without charm and there are a lot of decent one-liners sprinkled throughout the script. The biggest problem is the fact that more time is given over to other people when Martin is the best asset that the film has, a problem that would crop up more and more in the years after this film.

Martin plays Newton Davis, a man who we first see presenting a house that he's just built to his girlfriend (Becky, played by Dana Delany) and then proposing to her. It doesn't go as he'd hoped. Jump forward by some time and viewers get to see Newton plodding away at his day job, as an architect, before getting a bit too drunk one evening and having a one night stand with Gwen (Goldie Hawn). It turns out that Gwen has some issues with telling the truth. When she wakes up, alone, the next morning she remembers all that Newton said about the house he built that is now standing empty in the middle of a small, welcoming community. So she goes there, moves in and soon blurts out to the locals that she is Newton's wife. By the time Newton finds out about this whopper of a lie his parents (Donald Moffat and Julie Harris) have already warmed to Gwen, Becky is obviously regretting letting him go and the whole mess looks as if it could work out for the best, as long as the web of fiction holds together long enough.

The script and direction may both be relatively safe, but that doesn't mean that it's stale. I'm sure that some people will turn on this movie and be scrambling for the remote control within ten minutes, but I am won over as soon as the opening credits roll and I know that I'm about to spend just over 90 minutes in pleasant company.

Hawn isn't the best partner that Martin has starred alongside, but she does okay and her character is a fun one (though the movie often shies away from the obvious major, psychological problems that she has). Martin is in uptight, slightly frantic mode and reacts well to every new development that puts him on the back foot. Yet, as well as the obvious humour stemming from their situation, there is also a nice development of the relationship between the two leads, often showing their fake marriage as being not entirely dissimilar to any real one.
Delany is pretty good as the old flame who, of course, complicates the whole situation, and Moffat and Harris are both delightful as loving parents who take the news of the marriage surprisingly well, eventually.
Richard B. Shull and Laurel Cronin add to the fun during an almost farcical finale, Peter MacNicol steals every scene that he's in, playing Newton's friend and a man desperate to make his way up the corporate ladder, and Roy Cooper is also very good as the big boss man who may not realise what a talented architect Newton really is.

And there's also a lovely rendition of Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Steve-Martin-Collection-DVD/dp/B000QJMSFA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374099555&sr=8-1&keywords=steve+martin