FEMME FATALE
© 2002 Warner Bros.

Mania Grade: B
Reviewed Format: Wide Theatrical Release
Rated: R
Stars: Antonio Banderas, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Peter Coyote, Gregg Henry, Eriq Ebouaney
Writer: Brian De Palma
Director: Brian De Palma
Distributor: Warner Bros.

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FEMME FATALE

After expending his energies on a pair of generic, effects-laden studio thrill rides (MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and MISSION TO MARS) and an only slightly more effective suspense thriller (SNAKE EYES) in recent years, Brian De Palma was long overdue to return to what may be considered his main dialogue with moviegoers: the twisted tales of obsession, deceit and death he's woven so memorably in efforts such as SISTERS, DRESSED TO KILL, BLOW OUT and  BODY DOUBLE. The film that brings De Palma back to his storytelling center is FEMME FATALE, a moody, gleefully stylish noir thriller of the type he can craft better than just about any modern director. The result is a flawed, credibility-straining piece of big-screen eye candy and a hell of a lot of fun.

Model-turned-X-MEN villainess Rebecca Romijn-Stamos plays the venomous, wonderfully unpredictable title character, Laure Ash, whose ability to alter her shape in shifting situations puts the mutant Mystique to shame. De Palma (personally scripting one of his films for the first time since 1992's RAISING CAIN) tells us everything we need to know about his antiheroine in the bravura opening section, which has Laure go from studying Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY to staging a daring jewelry heist at the Cannes International Film Festival to pulling a fast one on her male cohorts, all without once losing her icy blonde cool.

Alas, things don't proceed quite so smoothly for Laure from there on out, and she's soon on the run from said cohorts especially Eriq Ebouaney's fearsome main baddie, who doesn't take kindly to her attempting to make off with the loot. Laure solves this problem the way anyone would: She replaces a suicidal brunette dead ringer for herself (also Romijn-Stamos) whose life happens to intersect with hers at exactly the right moment. Without giving too much away, let's just say that even this neat trick doesn't permanently end her troubles, and her reinvented character eventually faces dangers from multiple fronts, including the threat of exposure posed by a well-meaning photographer (Antonio Banderas) hired to snap a shot of her.

In the end,

Fanboys rejoice: Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is Brian De Palma's FEMME FATALE.

© 2002 Warner Bros.

It all adds up to the juiciest of breakthrough roles for the stunning Romijn-Stamos, whose first coup was simply winning such a complex part on the strength of a big-screen resume limited to some body-painted action work in X-MEN and Russian-accented biker badassing in the much-maligned remake of ROLLERBALL. Her more than respectable work in what amounts to a series of very different character bits suggests Hollywood may have found the Holy Grail at last a supermodel who can carry a lead role! She's particularly good when bouncing off the ever-affable Banderas, whose very secondary co-lead is no more than framing material for her all-dominating character (or characters). And what can possibly be said about the steamy moment when she ravishes Victoria's Secret model Rie Rasmussen in a Cannes lady's room as part of the scheme to steal the serpent-shaped piece of jewelry that makes up most of the latter's costume? Teenage boys of America, start warming up your DVD players.

As usual with De Palma, a visual stylist and technician almost without peer among American directors, FEMME FATALE's main problems are script issues in particular, the sense that this rather slick, superficial film means less and less the further one gets into it. Give the man a script like CARRIE, THE UNTOUCHABLES or CASUALTIES OF WAR, and there simply isn't anybody who can give it more impact on-screen. Even his widely thrashed '90s MISSIONs had a couple of brilliant, visual-driven sequences each, and the first half hour of SNAKE EYES has to rank among his most impressive tours-de-force (even if the picture fell apart not long after). FEMME FATALE gets further than most of De Palma's recent efforts by avoiding the whole linear-storytelling thing altogether for the most part, though the naughty nightmare that results is almost certainly a couple of notches too arty for the mainstream cineplex crowd.

Viewers will certainly be divided about a major last-act curveball that changes the meaning of the entire film (the reviewer found it to be a cop-out your mileage may differ), but darn it if De Palma doesn't save the ending at the very last second with a powerful final shot that manages to fit the fragmented storyline into a strange kind of order. Leave it to Hitchcock's most faithful heir to leave us with a picture of pictures that comments on the essence of picture-making. The Master himself would have loved it.