mnpollio Review of Color of Night

Color of Night (1994)

Ludicrous thriller, albeit entertaining in unintentional ways

[4/10 · 16 September 2010]

The Color of Night is actually one of those rare achievements that no director or screenwriter could possibly strive for if they wanted to. A film that fails at pretty much everything it aspires, but manages to become compulsively viewable to see how much further a train wreck it can become and, by some strange twist, actually attains a level of guilty entertainment value it really does not deserve. Blending together the elements of a psychological Hitchcock thriller with the eroticism of Basic Instinct/Fatal Attraction/late night Cinemax films, the filmmakers end up with a conglomeration that was probably a far cry from what they intended, particularly given that director Richard Rush was actually a director of some reputation. Psychologist Bruce Willis has gone color blind since his inept attempts at counseling led to the unintentional suicide of a patient. He decides to seek solace with an old colleague Scott Bakula, who ends up murdered. Police seem to believe that the culprit is one of the participants of the group therapy sessions that Bakula oversaw and Willis steps in to ferret out the culprit. Meanwhile, Willis crosses paths with enigmatic young sexpot Jane March who may be more involved than he suspects. The group therapy sessions are a great source of unintentional comedy. Made up of fairly reliable character actors like Lance Henriksen, Kevin O'Connor and Lesley Ann Warren, all seem to realize that they are in glorified garbage and find intriguing ways in which to embellish their characters and hog the screen. In between, comical therapy sessions, Rush inserts an obligatory chase scene, a bloody murder, or an energetic sex romp between the leads. No one can ever accuse the film of being a bore. Unfortunately the ham factor does not extend to the leads. March has been handed a virtually unplayable part filled with assorted pitfalls, and even the more remedial elements seem out of her reach. She never seems vampish enough to attract the kind of attention bestowed upon her in the film. Even worse, March's distinctive looks render a latter-film plot twist psychotically absurd when the audience has been leagues ahead of everyone else on screen and the respective characters' bafflement seems downright jaw-dropping. Much press was spilled about the torrid sex scenes compiled for the film, including much ballyhooed full frontal exposure from leading man Willis, but the leads generate no sparks. I give Willis credit for a) generously stepping up to the plate and showing substantial skin at a time when most American mainstream leading men would have run in the opposite direction, and b) trying to play the lead role seriously, but he is positively lifeless in this film. One has no rooting interest in either his relationship with March, his ability to counsel his patients, or whether he will even make it out of the various chase/attack scenes in one piece. He has rendered himself into a virtual stick of wood devoid of any emotion. Yet, in spite of its miscast and outmatched leads and the thoroughly incompetent direction, the film has that car accident quality that keeps one watching well past the point where it should be turned off. The conclusion is pure Grand Guignol corn with a bit of a cheat on the murderer, but what an unintentionally hilarious loony ride it is to that point.