Mortal Thoughts (1991)

I will confess that my personal life and upbringing played a big part in how I reacted to this film. I'm a West Coast boy top to bottom. I just could not relate to the Jersey culture or the Jersey people in this film. In all their personal relationships they were at war with one another. The characters, boys and girls, were overwhelmingly stupid in that they bought into the culture of personal violence and consuming vanity. So all in all I could not relate to any of the characters and really didn't give a rat's a** what came down. They all brought whatever happened to them upon themselves. Yes Bruce Willis was believable as a total reprobate of a human being, and Demi Moore and Glenne Headley were almost believable as two Thoroughly Beaten Beauty Shop Chicks without the sense to get out of their caustic relationships. That's enough of my rant. Good-By for Now, Minorth.

Fmovies: Talk about your off-shoot movies for major actors, like these two. Demi Moore is superb in this tale of urban violence against women and family and drug use. Bruce plays a character that I haven't seen him tackle before. He does it in an outstanding manner. Glenne Headley as Demi's close friend and co-worker drops the accent and does new Jersey as it should be done. I really didn't like this story, I was very uncomfortable, but I realize, looking back that it was right on the money. The subject needs to be dissected. Moreover it needs to be taken seriously and not swept under the carpet, as it has in many cases. Stats' read out to be 1-3 women are being abused, or have been in an abusive relationship. Demi shows her mettle, she also shows what it's like to come to the end of a violent union.

Glenne, her friend was supportive and a little shaky at times. I can't figure who wouldn't be, but she was also strength for her friend. This was a dark and intense brief, look into what some are living through. I am glad that this was made, it shows the grit that it takes to just make it through the day with someone of that lifestyle. Demi is the type that is really believable in this, there aren't a lot of other actresses that have the ability to reach the emotionally burned-out look and feel that Moore does in this. Willis, was and I can't say enough about his performance as he was just a 'natural' in 'MORTAL'.

When you can be close and taste it even just a little it is hard to try and blame someone for using the extreme method to exit a relationship just that way.

Although, they have to take responsibility in it, when it's them that started the life together in the first place. There are 'signs' that any person should be aware of before abandoning them self to a relationship commitment. Seek counseling first, or talk with close friends around you and don't ever simply base your longing on an emotional state of being...for sure you'll be sorry in the end. And you will in deed be looking for the fifty ways to leave your lover.

Recommended...learn from this one too.(****)

Mortal Thoughts stars Demi Moore and her husband at that time, Bruce Willis. I was instantly intrigued by this film. The storyline is fantastic and the casting is superb (although I would say that as Bruce Willis is my favourite actor!) I was impressed by the acting, particularly Harvey Keitel, who plays police detective John Woods. Willis is also very good as evil and abusive husband Jim. He is very convincing and instantly hateable. Although the film contains some disturbing scenes, it is exciting and tense throughout, with an impressive and unexpected twist at the end. Set in New Jersey, the directing is also good, with flashing images and slow motion effects. A creepy but enjoyable film from beginning to end, and well worth the watch!

Mortal Thoughts fmovies. I caught this on TV last night, and decided to give it a go because it started Demi Moore and Bruce Willis.

Cynthia (Moore) comes forward to talk to detective John (Harvey Keitel) about the murder of her best friend's husband. The story is told as a series of flashbacks... James (Willis) was a bullying, physically abusive husband. His wife Joyce has, on a number of occasions, expressed her intention to kill him.

All the cast do a fine job, Glenne Headly slightly over does it with her accent, but it's only a minor gripe. Willis is solid as the sleazy violent husband, Keitel does what is required of him and then, there is Moore. This was the second of three Box Office disappointments she made inbetween the success of Ghost and A Few Good Men.

It's a shame this never found an audience as Moore puts in a really good performance

For me, Demi Moore remains one of the most talented and beautiful women in movies, and her sexiness is in rare supply. Any movie becomes promising just by having her name in it's cast.

First of all I have no idea why this was named "Mortal Thoughts." More appropriate would be, "Fatal Lies" or "An Inadvertent Confession," or maybe "Desperate Friends." Be that as it may, this is a superior thriller mainly because the story is compelling and the acting is first rate. Demi Moore who plays Cynthia is just outstanding. She commands the screen with her beautiful and expressive features and her great natural skill. If you don't like her, I guarantee you will not like this movie because she dominates the film. She is as vivid and unforgettable as an Al Pacino or a Betty Davis.

As an aside on the career of Demi Moore, I want to say that it's a shame for her that her off-screen personality is not well liked, which in large part accounts for the fact that she is one of the most underrated, although one of the most often seen and hardest-working stars of the last fifteen years or so. This movie is an example of how she is ignored. The plain fact is her performance here is better than many who have won Oscars, and she wasn't even nominated. Another problem for her is that this movie (and others she has made) are not the sort of films that the Academy pays much attention to. Mortal Thoughts (which she co-produced, by the way) is too low-budget, too "common" one might say, for any part in it to be taken seriously in an artistic sense. Too bad.

Glenne Headly (Joyce) is also outstanding while Bruce Willis is excellent as Joyce's drug-addled, boozing, wife-beating loser of a husband. The dialogue is right on, realistically depicting the lives of New Jersey beauty shop people while the plot told in ersatz flashbacks unfolds nicely with a fine tension.

The story is that of two friends, Joyce and Cynthia who find they have to cover up a killing (NOT a murder, but at worst a manslaughter, or better yet, a case of self-defense), but fall apart as the investigation closes in on them. In a sense they are both like Lady Macbeth with blood on their hands and no effective way to wash it off. They are both appropriately naive as young working-class women, and both act foolishly, as many of us might in their predicament.

Here's a nice bit of ironic dialogue. Joyce is questioning her ability to convince people about what happened. She tells Cynthia that she isn't a very good liar. But Cynthia reassures her: "Joyce, you're a terrific liar. You just lost confidence in yourself." This is all to the good as far as film-making goes. It is the ending that is the problem.

One might ask, what happened to the ending? Maybe I need to watch this again to be sure I didn't miss anything. But better yet, YOU watch it and you be the judge. What I think happened is director Alan Rudolph truncated it. Either that or he decided to try something artistic, which I don't recommend in a commercial thriller flick. Maybe they just ran out of money and had to wrap it up. At any rate, we are left wondering what is going to happen and who actually did what to whom. Presumably, the last flashback from Cynthia tells us how Bruce Willis's character met his end, but that doesn't solve the problem of how or why (somebody else) was shot full of holes. Maybe the producers thought they would wrap it all up in a sequel. Actually, there's enough there for one, easily.

I would also like to complain about a movie that acts out a false story told by one of the characters as though the story were true. That can be done, but it m

Bryan Singer's 'The Usual Suspects' was itself a rather unusual thriller: almost the entire plot consisted of a criminal suspect telling the police a lie. By literally representing the character's words in images, the film exploited the trust that any movie-watcher has to put in what they see; the very concept of cinema only works if the audience can believe their own eyes, so it's a somewhat underhand trick to take advantage of this. But 'The Usual Suspects' nonetheless worked as a film, for three reasons. Firstly, the lie was extraordinarily entertaining in itself. Secondly, it's essentially falsity was brilliantly revealed. And thirdly, this revelation forced the viewer to reconsider everything they had seen in the film. If all movies were like this, cinema would die, but as an isolated film, it definitely made the grade.

Alan Rudolph's curiously named 'Mortal Thoughts' (surely "morbid thoughts" are actually what feature in this film) is a kind of precursor to 'The Usual Susepcts', but less acclaimed, and with good reason. The basic tale is less interesting than in the later film; there's no cleverness in the revelation, and the actual truth does not anyway fundamentally change one's opinion of the characters. The film doesn't even try and fool the audience: Harvey Keitel's policeman tells the witness throughout that he doesn't believe what she is saying, and once you accept that the woman may be lying, then the possibilities are limitless (something Singer dealt with deftly by only uncovering the lie at the very end, before it truly sinks into the audience that if the story was a pack of lies, then the truth could be anything). The result is a film that is reasonably watchable, but hardly distinguished. Yet in the true story, revealed at the end, there's actually a tale of human drama that might have driven a pretty strong film. The secondary tale of someone merely lying about such a story, however, is comparatively dull.