Review #51 THE LAST SEDUCTION (1994, John Dahl)

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She’s a woman in a man’s world – and in his pants, and in his wallet. Whatever it takes to get her hands on nearly a million dollars.

Starring  Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman, JT Walsh, Bill Nunn

Written by  Steve Barancik

Produced by  Jonathan Shestack   

Duration  110 minutes   

Bill Pullman had terrible luck onscreen with women in the ’90s. SOMMERSBY, MALICE, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE – he doesn’t get the girl in any of them. As if people getting him mixed up with Bill Paxton all the time wasn’t bad enough! Even though that's plainly preposterous (unlike Dermott Mulroney and Dylan McDermott or Kim Coates and Elias Koteas; now, those I can understand.)

THE LAST SEDUCTION was part of Pullman’s luckless streak of cinematic romance, but it isn’t actually his movie. His character's merely one of the men spun into the web weaved by his wife Bridget (Linda Fiorentino), in his case when she pinches the $700,000 he made selling pharmaceutical cocaine and does a runner from their New York apartment. 

Unlike the Pullman/Paxton phenomenon, Fiorentino definitely wasn't getting mistaken for anyone else. With LAST SEDUCTION, she carved a distinct place on the list of classic femme fatales, among Ava Gardner in THE KILLERS, Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, Sharon Stone in BASIC INSTINCT and Kathleen Turner in BODY HEAT – although come to think of it, Fiorentino does sound a bit like the throaty-voiced Turner.

But her Bridget is a true one-off, a whip-smart and resourceful force of nature who gets what she wants, always looks out for number one, and makes sure she has a damn good time along the way.

Peter Berg – just before veering from acting to directing with VERY BAD THINGS, followed by a succession of tepid Mark Wahlberg projects – plays the needy feminine role here. He's Mike, a local from the small town in which our heroine hides out while the heat dies down back in NYC. At first Mike's just a fuck buddy, but Bridget quickly pegs him as more useful as a patsy for a new scheme she’s brewing up.

It's sometimes said that movies need to have sympathetic characters in order to work. Do they bollocks! It’s asinine to criticise a picture for expecting you to side with someone less than angelic; a bland lament trotted out by people unable to process that you can relate to a flawed person while not approving of their behaviour.

In LAST SEDUCTION, Bridget lies, steals, blackmails, curses like Jack Nicholson in THE LAST DETAIL, uses people, has zero empathy ... and we want her to succeed. Why? Because she’s determined and resourceful, she’s quick-witted and smart and she doesn’t take shit from anyone. Most of us are meek and listless in our everyday lives; we respect someone who ruthlessly pursues their goals, even if we don’t like what those goals are.

And hey, guess what – it’s fiction we’re talking about here! Newsflash: we all have less than pure impulses and the realm of fantasy is a harmless place to indulge them, whether that’s just in our own minds or during a couple of hours spent watching a movie. Better like that than actually acting on them.

THE LAST SEDUCTION does still hedge its bets, but rather cleverly. Pullman's character impulsively hits Bridget in the opening scene, framing all her subsequent betrayals as stemming from domestic abuse. So in the viewer’s eyes, not to mention her own, she's the wronged one and spends the movie fighting back. Plus it helps that Pullman forgoes his usual nice guy routine to play the kind of sleazebag Tom Sizemore would have been proud of.

Fiorentino is formidable as Bridget, who remains pleasingly unrepentant until the bitter end. Director John Dahl (KILL ME AGAIN, RED ROCK WEST) adds another solid neo-noir to his resume, and we all get to enjoy some time on the wrong side of the tracks, before crossing safely back over to our straight-arrow lives, where we all live like flawless saints.

And for the record, Bill Pullman has been happily married since 1987, has three children, and did in fact get a happy romantic ending in 1995's WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING. So, there's hope for all of us. 

Four stars out of five.

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  As Bridget drives away scot-free at the end, it seems highly doubtful that she won’t be using her powers of seduction again on the next hapless male who either gets in the way of what she wants or who can be manipulated into helping her acquire it.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SEDUCTION be about?  Maybe it’s about time we had a Bridget Gregory origin story?

 

Previously:  THE LAST DETAIL

Next time:  THE LAST SUPPER

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