This was a sleeper. It was so great that I cannot rave enough about it
Added 2/15/2009
I rented this on netflix and was not expecting too much from the movie. I was pleasantly surprised. It is a great and suspenseful movie. I was tranfixed all the way through. I then went to Amazon.com to make my purchase.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Above average homage to Hitchcock
Added 9/28/2008
The set-up sounds as though it was lifted straight from "Rear Window": while cheating on her husband, Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert) sees a woman being attacked from her lover, Terry's (Steve Guttenburg), bedroom window. However, after the first 10 - 15 minutes, "The Bedroom Window" diverges from the "Rear Window" formula and becomes its own story. Seeing that Sylvia doesn't want her husband to know that she is cheating on him but still wants to do the "right thing", Terry offers to report the attack to the police and pretend that he was the witness. As you would expect, things don't go to plan and soon the police suspect Terry of being the attacker and of killing several other women. It is now up to Terry to clear his name and to stop the real attacker from striking again.
After a slow-moving first half-hour, which primarily consists of Steve Guttenberg driving around Washington D.C. and staring at people, "The Bedroom Window" actually shapes up to be a reasonably good film. I liked the fact that the film starts off as a "Rear Window" clone and then takes the story in a different direction (if I wanted to see "Rear Window" again, I'd watch that, or at the very least, "Disturbia") and the turns that the story does take are interesting, albeit somewhat predictable.
Essentially this is a B-grade film that was probably released straight to video. However, it is directed by Curtis Hanson, who later went on to direct "L.A. Confidential", and who does a far better job at paying homage to Hitchcock than Brian DePalma did in his much over-rated "Obsession". Furthermore, although the high-point of his career was the "Police Academy" films (and with good reason, too), Steve Guttenberg is still pleasant to watch, and the second half of the film was exciting enough to make this film worth my time.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Fabolous!!
Added 6/14/2008
The Bedroom Window is one of my favorite movies of all time. I was so surprised to finally find this movie, which I had been searching for along time to find. I encourage anyone to shop on amazon.com if you can't find something particular. "Amazon Has It All" Thanks!!!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Paging Brian DePalma!
Added 10/29/2007
Isabelle Huppert and generic Steve Guttenberg prove incompatible costars in "The Bedroom Window," a cockamamie mystery that finds these bi-continentals drawn together like refrigerator magnets to styrofoam coolers.
The lovers are supposed to be absolutely crazy about each other, sick with lust even, but Guttenberg's merely more blah than usual and Huppert, in her first English-speaking role, seems to be translating as she goes. It may not be all their fault. Both were saddled with a pre-L.A. Confidential. Curtis Hanson. Up to this point, Hanson's previous directing credits included such immortals as "The Arousers" and "Losin' It," He had no business at the helm of a Hitchcock rip-off. (Was Brian DePalma unavailable?) Curtis' copycat pacing was as wrong-headed as his care and feeding of the actors -- (an area in which he seemed to favor starvation.)
Hanson's screenplay, however, isn't half bad. It's about a Baltimorean (Guttenberg) who pretends to witness a crime to conceal his affair with his boss's wife (Huppert), and then becomes a suspect in the case himself. Cherubic Elizabeth McGovern as the victim teams with Guttenberg to trap the real rapist, who gets off scot-free on one of those pesky technicalities. To bait the psycho killer, McGovern disguises herself as a floozy and slithers off to a working man's bar on the wrong side of Baltimore. She looks like a cross between a female impersonator and Alvin the Chipmunk as she wiggles on her bar stool. She makes an utter fool of herself. Where was Hanson, for instance, when she licked her forefinger and caressed the tip of the pool cue? Even Carl Lumbly as a detective -- the same Carl Lumbly who played a detective on "Cagney & Lacey" every week -- doesn't come off convincingly here.
Of course, we have to suffer through more romance when McGovern recovers her libidinal urges in the company of the scintillating, hopelessly attractive, Nautilus-improved Guttenberg. And they make Huppert and Guttenberg look like "Caligula."
Yes, it's Bad Movie magic.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
A Forgotten Gem From Curtis Hanson
Added 3/3/2007
Sitting down to watch a suspense film with a title like "Bedroom Window" led my movie addled brain to start looking for connections to Hitchcock's "Rear Window." And they are there, from the crime witnessed through a window with limited information to the directing of Curtis Hanson that relies heavily on techniques that were used throughout "Rear Window." You know, shot of voyeur watching somebody suspicious, cut to suspicious guy doing something, cut back to voyeur for reaction shot. The Hitchcock references do not stop there however, rather the entire film is a cornucopia of homages. We have a psycho killer who lives at home with his faceless, controlling mother. Plus the main storyline is that of a man, a Wrong Man if you will, who falls under the hostile eye of the police for a crime he did not commit. So yes, you have seen it all before, but I happily gobbled it up all over again, and then realized that what I had just consumed was actually better than most of Hitchcock's oeuvre.
The plot is one of those that motors along solely because nothing ever goes right. All of the twists are perfectly thought out and it makes for a delightfully messed up tale, but it all totally unrealistic because, come on, who is ever really that unlucky? Terry (Steve Guttenberg) is having an affair with his boss' blonde, accented wife when she spies an assault outside his apartment. The next day a different girl turns up dead a few blocks away but Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert) can't go to the police because that would expose their little tryst. So Terry, trying to be a hero, takes her place and reports the crime. Soon after he is convinced that he has found the real killer himself which leads to him chasing this man, Carl Henderson (Brad Greenquist), around town until his suspicions are verified. One thing leads to another and the next thing you know Carl is running free and Terry is the main suspect. Of course it is all his fault, trying to impress the lady and all that, but this film makes a strong case for not doing your civic duty.
I really have almost all good things to say about this film. It is basically a movie about lying, and how the lies build upon themselves until your normal life is obliterated and you're wanted for murder. But we've all been in similar situations before which is what makes this film so powerful. The courtroom scene in which Wallace Shawn plays a defense attorney who dances rings around the mealy mouthed Terry has no more style than a typical "Law and Order" episode, but is just as engrossing. I was surprised to see Carl Lumbly show up as one of the lawyers because I was under the impression that his career began and ended with "Alias." Brad Greenquist does a superb job at being the frighteningly anguished suspected killer as he comes off as a Good Little Nazi with red hair. As a counterpoint to Spike Lee this film could have been called "Don't Do the Right Thing", as it may win you the approval of some girl and the police but ultimately it is a bad investment. Soon all parties involved think that they can dictate your next move to you only so that a few days later they can start to wonder if it was really you who did the killing. Hanson has done marvelous work since, but "Bedroom Window" sits near the top of his career. It has Hitchcock on the brain, but so do we, and Hanson knows how to tap into our darkest fears and serve up a pulpy thriller that gripped me from the first scene. ***3/4
3 out of 3 people found this helpful.
|
This was a sleeper. It was so great that I cannot rave enough about it
Added 2/15/2009
I rented this on netflix and was not expecting too much from the movie. I was pleasantly surprised. It is a great and suspenseful movie. I was tranfixed all the way through. I then went to Amazon.com to make my purchase.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Above average homage to Hitchcock
Added 9/28/2008
The set-up sounds as though it was lifted straight from "Rear Window": while cheating on her husband, Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert) sees a woman being attacked from her lover, Terry's (Steve Guttenburg), bedroom window. However, after the first 10 - 15 minutes, "The Bedroom Window" diverges from the "Rear Window" formula and becomes its own story. Seeing that Sylvia doesn't want her husband to know that she is cheating on him but still wants to do the "right thing", Terry offers to report the attack to the police and pretend that he was the witness. As you would expect, things don't go to plan and soon the police suspect Terry of being the attacker and of killing several other women. It is now up to Terry to clear his name and to stop the real attacker from striking again.
After a slow-moving first half-hour, which primarily consists of Steve Guttenberg driving around Washington D.C. and staring at people, "The Bedroom Window" actually shapes up to be a reasonably good film. I liked the fact that the film starts off as a "Rear Window" clone and then takes the story in a different direction (if I wanted to see "Rear Window" again, I'd watch that, or at the very least, "Disturbia") and the turns that the story does take are interesting, albeit somewhat predictable.
Essentially this is a B-grade film that was probably released straight to video. However, it is directed by Curtis Hanson, who later went on to direct "L.A. Confidential", and who does a far better job at paying homage to Hitchcock than Brian DePalma did in his much over-rated "Obsession". Furthermore, although the high-point of his career was the "Police Academy" films (and with good reason, too), Steve Guttenberg is still pleasant to watch, and the second half of the film was exciting enough to make this film worth my time.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Fabolous!!
Added 6/14/2008
The Bedroom Window is one of my favorite movies of all time. I was so surprised to finally find this movie, which I had been searching for along time to find. I encourage anyone to shop on amazon.com if you can't find something particular. "Amazon Has It All" Thanks!!!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
