SIMPLY AN ENTERTAINING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER.
This film speaks for itself. Superb acting and well directed. A tense tightly scripted psychological thriller. Ex-LA cop Andy Garcia now living in a small town tries to solve a pair of local murders. His only hope is a blind woman who seems to be the key to the serial killer's activities. What is more she may be 'Jennifer Eight' the murderer's codeword for the next victim. This 2 hour film keeps you on the edge of your seat. Fantastic movie, entertaining not to dull although the ending could have been longer. The film finishes very quickly otherwise well worth watching.
First Of The Genre
True enough, movies about serial killers are just too many around, and the theme is simply overdone. Now, J8 has been shot in 1992, and if you make abstraction of all the dullest things done ever since, it IS a damn good movie.
First, Garcia's character John Berlin is no body-built, trigger-happy superman. He's merely a lab-tech, a forensic-oriented cop who stumbles upon what he thinks is the work of a serial. No shots fired, no wild car chases. The whole story is very plausible : from the cars they drive (a regular unmarked brown Police pack Caprice,and an 10-year old, battered 380SEC Mercedes as Berlin's personal car), to the clothes they wear, or the guns they carry. No fancy suits (although Garcia's short coat is really cool), and no 5-pound cannons (plain, California police regular issue Beretta 92). Creative police work, brainstorming and trial by error. Sounds a lot like your next door homicide cop daily bread and butter. And last but not least, the movie is shot in rural...
Breathless, Sightless, Dead
Writer/Director Bruce Robinson, best known for his cult hit "Withnail & I", has crafted a creditable little thriller in "Jennifer 8". It gets all the technical elements right, features some fine work from its actors, and does its best to screw around with the genre. But it rarely adds up to anything more than the sum of its parts.
One of the strengths of Robinson's script is the stylish and effective dialogue he gives to his police officers. Most of the best bits come from the mouth of Sergeant Ross, like when he tells his wife he can't stay for dinner because it's "Friday night at City Hall... I've got a chance to frighten the fat." He's talking about securing a confession from a suspect, but it hardly matters, doesn't it? "Where are the ladies?" asks Sergeant Berlin, before a party. "Putting on the warpaint," comes Ross' reply. My favourite line, and probably the film's most ostentatious, is this little nugget which falls from the mouth of a visiting FBI investigator:...
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