Despite some iffy performances, the direction and story make this a pretty good imitation of an RKO Radio film noir from 40 years earlier. Private eye Jack Andrews (Val Kilmer, miscast but reasonably effective), in debt to gamblers who have just broken his finger, is confronted with $10,000 from white-suited, sloe-eyed Fay (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer) if he will arrange for her fake death to put a murderous boyfriend off her trail. Well, 'tecs have to agree to this kind of thing, or we wouldn't have any stories, but one of the things Jack doesn't know is that Fay has almost a million dollars in Mafia money stolen from her boyfriend, who killed a mobster to get it. Big trouble for Jack, as you can see, from the police, from the Mob, from the boyfriend and not least from the distinctly unreliable Fay. Whalley-Kilmer looks good in the Jane Greer tradition but occasionally overdoes her femme Fay-tale. But Michael Madsen is a knockout as the ruthless boyfriend, and director John Dahl moves the story doomily along without too much wasted footage, and has some nice touches with the inevitable cross and double-cross at the end. Thriller fans won't be disappointed.

©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes