(1996)
3
Michael Costello
Bob Rafelson returns to the style of filmmaking he helped popularize in the '70s with Five Easy Pieces (1970) and The King of Marvin Gardens (1972) with an extraordinarily well-acted, if conventional, noir thriller. The director referred to those earlier films in describing this as the concluding piece of a trilogy, but unlike the young, unsettled characters Jack Nicholson played in those films, the bitter, misanthropic wine merchant he essays here is long past redemption. Much the same could be said for his partner in a planned jewel theft, Michael Caine, a veteran yegg whose volatility is always threatening to destroy their ad hoc union. Throw in the businessman's justifiably venomous wife (Judy Davis), her mysteriously sullen stepson (Michael Dorff), and the sexy mistress (Jennifer Lopez), who has an eye for Dorff, and one begins to understand his stress. Nicholson sheds his pet mannerisms and digs into a very dark corner of himself for this memorably ugly character, and Caine matches him every step of the way. The two seem to thrive on carving each other up, and their energy adds texture and weight to an otherwise predictably noirish tale of self-immolation. Davis is again superb in the somewhat limiting part of a wronged wife, and the two younger actors are saddled with even more tangential characters.
Blood and Wine on AllMovie
Blood and Wine (1996)
