Thursday, December 12, 2013

Movie review - "Fair Game" (1995) *

Another film I saw after the enthusiastic endorsement of the team at How Did This Get Made? and it didn't disappoint. Eventually, that is... at first I thought they were being too mean, and this wasn't that bad. Cindy Crawford was in over her head but she was pretty, looked good and was giving it a go - she had too much dialogue, and bad dialogue at that, but she was trying, and was willing to offer up a bit of partial nudity to make the punters happy. And there's no reason why a story about a bunch of baddies trying to kill her and a hunky cop trying to stop them couldn't have worked on a cheesy level.

The terrible script is far more to blame than Crawford why this doesn't work - there's no real reason for the baddies to kill Crawford, especially not to go to such incredible, expensive lengths; the baddies have an incredible ability of technology except when it's needed for plot; the good guys are unbelievably stupid (eg using credit cards when there are people out to kill them); the baddies spend most of the film trying to kill Crawford then they decide to hold her hostage for no good reason. None of it makes sense.

There's also terrible wise-cracky dialogue, unfunny comedy scenes, hammy Russian henchmen, Steven Berkoff sleep walking through his villain role (he's nowhere near as good as he is in Octopussy or Beverly Hills Cop), a hilarious explosion where Crawford is blown off her balcony. Billy Baldwin is likeable in the lead - it's not his fault this is a turkey (apart from accepting the role) and some of the action is decent enough.

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