Nonureva Really Surprised!

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

sharky_55 The Last Seduction is knee deep in the kind of seedy, neo-noir atmosphere you expect from these movies made in the 80s and 90s: House of Games, Basic Instinct, L.A. Confidential, Blood Simple, you know the type. The characters talk like they're either in the big city, or they're pretending to be. Their dialogue drips with suggestion and double meaning, not merely to turn the wheels of their devious schemes but also to key the audience into their motives. Linda Fiorentino is never less than what the plot needs her to be. Even as she is treated to her familiar dose of domestic abuse you can hear the churning and scheming in her mind - ladies and gentlemen, your femme fatale. And yet the performance is alluring all the same, despite dozens of previous stories telling us all how this one ends. Bridget Gregory, or Wendy Kroy, doesn't have the same blonde bombshell figure that you might expect after seeing Kathleen Turner in Body Heat, but in her mind that just keeps unwanted attention at bay. She doesn't need the pining of the small-town schmucks, she needs the guy in the middle, the straight-laced, overly-polite insurance worker who will go the extra mile for her even after having been rejected half a dozen times. Only after this initial test of his will (and his physical capabilities) does she give a little away. Peter Berg seems like a sap at first glance, the type of person to take an insult openly like a slap in the face and slip in a little self-depreciation for good measure. Here's a gorgeous woman offering one night stands upfront with a no commitment deal, but he mopes and mopes; he wants to talk a little in between all the sex, and eventually move up into the 'I love you' territory. Berg's Mike is so stilted and robotic next to Fiorentino throwing herself at him that it's almost as if he was an alien studying how to perform a human. But then the final twist is revealed, and suddenly everything makes sense. Mike has had his sense of masculinity shattered, and flees to his home town to re-piece it together. He can't afford to fall at the feet of whichever local hottie says hi to him at the bar; he's too guarded for that. Every minute of Mike's character is him over-correcting for his past mistakes, cautiously tip-toeing around the latest gal in town. But like any good noir, eventually he will fall in. And who wouldn't? Watch Fiorentino use her shoulder-length hair like a silky, black curtain, constantly swishing it back and forth as a power move. She doesn't just sit down, she sprawls and displays her entire body over furniture pieces, leaning way, way back, and men everywhere are transfixed. And her vocal delivery has just a tiny touch of huskiness to it - is it any wonder that Mike follows her around like a puppy?Bill Pullman as Clay, the wronged man, sticks out like the third wheel to this odd couple. He may put everything into that deadbeat grimace of his, but this is the same guy who played the president of the United States (and by extension, the planet Earth). Try as he might, he can't seem to fully summon all his loathing for his ex-wife, and so their phone calls are part menace, and full on seduction. She hasn't just hit him back, she's kicked him square in the groin and the wallet, and yet here he is trying to crawl back anyway. You might argue that there is no depth to this femme fatale, and you'd be right. She wants money and sex, and is willing to forgo the latter for the former. The men she stalks are the same. It's either one or the other, and even poor Mike has that thinly veiled desperation about him when he cracks. In return, he attempts to desperately re-assert his masculinity and falls right into her trap. Forget the convenience of the phone call trace now being swift; what matters is how he has played right into her hands, and revealed his meekness to be nothing but a temporary facade. Yet the great noirs crafted entire lives in mere glances and touches, made longing and memory a torturous existence. Dahl uses his entire runtime as foreplay, and although at the end I was thrilled, the twist didn't tell me anything I didn't already know about dames like Bridget. In Out of the Past, Robert Mitchum has to fend off advances from a past lover, who threatens to pull him back into a world he once abandoned. At the end of the movie, we don't agree with his choice, but we understand why he chooses it - he never really left in the first place. True, you don't expect complex character introspection from these types of trashy neo-noirs, but at least throw in something fresh. The genre hit a snag in this period, by thinking that urban ugliness was the only setting that these archetypes belonged to. So the photography is all shadows and murkiness, with some neon signage here and there. But Fiorentino could bring a man to his knees in open daylight.

James Hitchcock Clay and Bridget Gregory are an affluent New York yuppie couple who supplement their income by a bit of drug dealing on the side. Their marriage, however, is not a happy one and after they make $700,000 on one deal Bridget steals the cash from her husband and flees to a small town near Buffalo. There she changes her name to Wendy Kroy and gets a job at the local insurance company. (Her new name is derived from "Wen Kroy"- "New York" spelt backwards). She begins a relationship with Mike, a young man who works for the same company, and evolves a complicated scheme to use Mike to get rid of Clay, who is desperately trying to track her down to recover the stolen money.I originally saw "The Last Seduction" when it first came out in 1994 and left it convinced that its leading lady Linda Fiorentino, so amply gifted with both beauty and talent, was going to become a major star. When I watched it again recently my main feeling was one of surprise that we have seen so little of her since. She did not even appear in the sequel "The Last Seduction II", in which the character of Bridget was played by Joan Severance. Here, however, her performance is absolutely electrifying. Bridget is quite shamelessly manipulative and deceitful, and so amoral that she verges on the psychopathic, but Fiorentino invests her with so much glamour and sex appeal that we can understand how a man like Mike might fall for her, even though he should be under no illusions as to her true nature. The other great performance comes from Bill Pullman, a man as devious as his wife and very nearly as clever.I initially wondered if the reason for Fiorentino's subsequent neglect by casting directors could have been that she got her big break too late- she was 36 when she appeared in this film- and therefore had insufficient time to establish herself as a major star before hitting 40, the age at which Hollywood starts to deem actresses as being over- the-hill and henceforward only suitable for "older woman" roles. On the other hand, this does not seem to have been a problem for Fiorentino's exact contemporary Sharon Stone, also born in 1958, who also got her big break in an erotic thriller, in her case "Basic Instinct", when in her mid-thirties. The film is an example of neo-noir, a type of thriller which takes the conventions of the original films noirs of the forties and fifties and adapts them to a modern style of film-making. "The Last Seduction" appears to have been inspired by one of the greatest films noirs, "Double Indemnity", which also featured a seductive, manipulative woman (played in that film by Barbara Stanwyck) and a character who worked for an insurance company. At one point the expression "double indemnity" is even mentioned in the script.The film is not quite as visually distinctive as some other neo-noirs such as "Body Heat", "Gorky Park", "Insomnia" or Polanski's "Chinatown", sometimes regarded as the film which started the neo-noir genre. In most other respects, however, it is excellent, with an ingenious plot, gripping action, some great acting and some sharp dialogue. It also has a vividly memorable anti-heroine in the shape of the glamorous, intelligent, resourceful yet utterly evil Bridget. I would rank it in the same class as that other great neo-noir from the nineties, "LA Confidential", which earned itself nine Academy Award nominations, including "Best Picture", and brought Kim Basinger an Oscar for "Best Supporting Actress". Certainly, there was talk of a "Best Actress" nomination for Fiorentino for "The Last Seduction", but in the event the film was not nominated for a single Oscar. This, however, had nothing to do with any lack of quality; it was ruled ineligible because it had been shown on HBO before it was released to theatres. Perhaps if Fiorentino had won, or even been nominated, her subsequent career would have been a lot more stellar. 8/10

tomsview "The Last Seduction" revels in its sheer audacity, and gives a whole new meaning to the words femme fatale – Linda Fiorentino's character uses lies and sexual allure as though they were superhuman powers similar to those possessed by the X-Men. Bridget Gregory, played by Linda Fiorentino, is married to Clay Gregory (Bill Pullman), a doctor dealing in drugs. When Clay returns to their New York apartment with $700,000 from his latest deal, Bridget steals the money and flees New York. Knowing that her husband and his associates will pursue her, she holds up in the small town of Beston.Bridget changes her name and finds a job and a lover, Mike Swale played by Peter Berg. Mike has returned to Beston after a failed marriage. Wendy seduces him and ensnares him in various schemes, never revealing how she came to be in Beston.When she realises that her husband is closing in on her, she hatches a plan that will rid her of all the troublesome men in her life.Wendy is relentless and merciless in her scheming. She believes there is nothing she can't achieve through the judicious employment of her sexual favours. These are so powerful that even at the end, in the most perilous of situations, Mike is completely overcome with lust and can't keep his hands off her. Of course, by this stage, credulity is stretched just a little too thin; sexual attraction this strong goes from being a superpower to a weapon of mass destruction. It's as well that the movie ends at this point.Although Linda Fiorentino's character runs dangerously close to being one-dimensional, she gets away with it due to our anticipation of her next, totally outrageous move, and a lightness of touch in her performance, which relieves the relentless evil.Berg's character is annoying. He is such a naïf in this movie that even when Wendy sets up him up, one feels little sympathy for him. The secret Wendy discovers about him is just one of many surprises that are set off like firecrackers during the course of the movie.Bill Pullman plays against type in this film, and although corrupt, his character has a certain charm. J. T. Walsh plays a lawyer and although it is only a small part, he lifts the movie with his presence.Scheming and double-crossing are tiring not only for the perpetrators but also for the audience. However, the movie has great energy, and with alto-sax playing knowingly on the soundtrack, Wendy unleashes those super-sexual powers to telling effect.

Shr Watched this movie expecting it to be a usual sexy flick, but once you start its a pretty brilliant movie.it starts of with a drug deal by a husband and wife to make some quick money and start off their dream life. But then the wife gets smart and tries to get away with the whole stash. in my opinion the script is very engaging and combined with the very convincing act put on by Linda Fiorentino(bridged gregory), the lead lady. She made the movie come to life with so much versatility, it was so natural and spontaneous. As the plot delves in, each of her wicked plans unfold, and we are left to wonder, "Oh God, what kind of woman is this?" But even then you have a subtle appreciation for the kind of tricky net she builds and manipulates people into it. She moves into a small country so that she can stay low for a while and gets a job, so as to stay rooted. But her husband, is not going to let go and sets out to find her. this is how the movie rolls. The highlight is it doesn't make the ending justifiable or the ending as it have turned out to be , like in the usual movies, this one takes a different turn, a much more fun turn, just as the whole movie is. Entertaining , sexy and carefree!