Few screenwriters were on a hot streak like Larry Kasdan in the late 70s and early 80s: Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, this, The Big Chill, Silverado... I like to re read the screenplay for this movie every couple of years, it's so good. Yes of course it's not the most original story in the world - couple get together, decide to kill woman's husband, things go horribly wrong - but it was marvellously updated to allow for explicit sex, bawdy humour and an ending where the baddy gets away with it. Also it has some fresh ideas - notably the fact the plot revolves around the incompetence of the lawyer, enabling a will to be struck out.
The casting is brilliant - William Hurt is perfect as the handsome but weak lawyer, never as smart as he thinks he is; Kathleen Turner very sexy as the femme fetale (although her performance with her drag queen delivery does too often spill into high camp, not helped by John Barry's OTT score); Richard Crenna the perfect industrialist husband; Ted Danson the tapdancing, likeable DA who hates investigating his friend; JA Preston as the decent cop; Mickey Rourke is electrifying as an arsonist. Sometimes it feels silly but then everything clicks and its great again.
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