The Last Seduction (1994)

I was sucked in by the high ratings and expected something intelligent but instead was annoyed for 90 minutes without the payoff at the end.

Fiorentino plays s person who thinks that they are smarter than everyone else. This only works when that character is *really* more clever than everyone else. This requires an *intelligent* plot. Instead, the plot twists all depend on the other characters acting in incredibly stupid ways. Thus, when everything that the smarmy lead does, no matter how stupid and predictable works out, it just irritates and annoys. Had it been a bit lighter hearted it might have been bearable and to be fair, there are a few funny lines that seem to satisfy the fans.

But for me, unless you enjoy watching a C-student's concept of a criminal mastermind, this was one of the most irritating films I've had the misfortune to sit through in a long time...

Fmovies: I liked this movie very much. It has a clever story, may be not to take too seriously. Clay (Bill Pullman) sells some pharmaceutical drugs and makes 700.000 dollars. He comes home, slaps his wife Bridget (Linda Fiorentino) and tries to make up for that. She can hit him as hard as she wants, he says. She does hit him hard; he takes a shower, she leaves with the money. In a small town near Buffalo she settles as Wendy Kroy and gets herself a sex-buddy (Peter Berg) which she can manipulate that way. Clay, of course, wants his money (he has to pay some people who do things with his thumbs when he doesn't have the money) and hires some detectives to find her.

Linda Fiorentino is may be the best femme fatale I have seen in movies. She doesn't know how to compromise, she is pure evil and very sexy at the same time. She obviously enjoys this character to play. She is absolutely great.

If you want to see another kind of movie you have to see this one. It is terrific with a nice direction from John Dahl (Red Rock West, Rounders) and a Fiorentino to remember.

Probably the best "Black Widow" movie of all time. I think it blows away comparable movies like Body Heat and shocker flicks like Basic Instinct and Hand That Rocks the Cradle. The main character is excellent especially in her ability to understand her surroundings and how to manipulate them to her advantage. Her tact is subtle when it needs to be and ferocious when the situation warrants it.

Any man who doesn't like this movie has obviously been manipulated in much the same manner and can't give the woman her due. She uses the male mentality and basic societal restrictions to her benefit in a way that is unparalleled.

She's the personification of a ruthless bitch. Truly Fantastic.

The Last Seduction fmovies. I love this film. It's an absolute breath of fresh air. Those who can't deal with the "immorality" of this film are drunk on Hollywood happy-ending sap and are blind to the realities of human nature. Guess what, in real life, more often than not, the bad guys don't get punished. If movies about the white hats winning in the end make you feel better about the reality of what usually happens in life, more power to you.

How many times have we cheered on a bad guy despite ourselves, even though we know he's bad, just because he's so charming and sexy? Why not the same of a woman? She's evil, she's manipulative, she gets what she wants. I love it. Would I want to meet someone like this in real life? Of course not. Do I find her behavior acceptable? Of course not, it's absolutely reprehensible. But this is a movie, it's entertainment, and the world is already full of bad-guys-get-it-in-the-end fantasies, orgies of violence that are only excused by the fact that the person being destroyed is a "bad guy" - why can't I relish in a fantasy of a brilliant and amoral woman triumphing over the stupid and trusting (and yes, people can really be that stupid, even smart people.) We want to believe in the essential goodness of mankind, but unfortunately, in the real world as in this movie, villains often capitalize on that need to believe for their own benefit.

Linda Fiorentino is absolutely amazing in this movie, I really wish she would get more work, her talents are completely underutilized. Sexy, smart, and in control. Bill Pullman is his usual wonderful self, and there are many other excellent supporting performances from the likes of J.T. Walsh (RIP) and Peter Berg.

This is the story of Bridget (Linda Fiorentino), a tall (5'7"), slender, throaty voiced brunette who cheats her husband (Bill Pullman) out of some drug money and runs for it. She heads to "cow country" where she hooks up with nice guy Mike (Peter Berg) and makes him her designated [BLEEP]. But when her husband comes knocking on her door intending to take back his money (and sends a series of guys after her) Bridget gets ready to kill him and set Mike up for the fall.

Had this been properly released in theaters, it could very well have put Fiorentino on the map, maybe even gotten her an Oscar for best actress in the role of the femme fatale. I wasn't exactly rooting for her, but she sure was compelling to watch and very sexy.

And speaking of sexy, the film features some very powerful sex scenes that put just about everything we've ever seen in the James Bond films to shame. Oh what a Bond girl Linda Fiorentino would have made, and after seeing her stripped naked here, you'll agree.

Director John Dahl's stylish film noir `Red Rock West' couldn't find a distributor, played on cable television and then was picked up by a San Francisco moviehouse where it set attendance records. If you think its subsequent success taught Hollywood suits anything, you just aren't cut out for the movie business.

With an even better script by Steve Barancik, Dahl found the ideal lead to play the very fatale femme of `The Last Seduction.' Linda Fiorentino, someone else who hasn't been well served by Hollywood, gave one of the great performances of the 1990s as Bridget/Wendy. Her no-holds-barred potrayal perfectly matched Barancik's uncompromising writing. Fiorentino deserved an Oscar, but didn't qualify because this film also went straight to cable before finding a distributor and becoming a hit.

Limited resources can focus the mind. Dahl isn't the most sweepingly visual of directors, but he can provide the occasional arresting scene. With a small but outstanding cast of what were then B-list actors, everyday settings and a tiny budget, the director kept `The Last Seduction' focused on the basics needed to make this genre work.

Without revealing too much of the plot, Bridget is on the lam after stealing $700,000 in drug proceeds from her sleazy, abusive husband, well played by Bill Pullman just before he became a good-guy leading man. The late great J.T. Walsh is smooth as a silk suit as Bridget's attorney, who appreciates a cold-hearted bitch. Bill Nunn does yeoman work as the detective on her trail.

But the key to this sort of black widow movie is a willing sap, and Peter Berg makes one of the best. A lean slice of beecake, he's back in his small town after a disastrous fling in the big city, that is, Buffalo. He's looking to get out again, and when Bridget breezes into the local shot-and-beer joint with her `city trash' attitude, he's done for.

As another reviewer chooses to emphasize, with her skinny legs and barely pubescent, pancake-flat chest Linda Fiorentino is the scrawniest femme fatale in the history of film noir. But that just makes her and her character's progress more amusing. Like Bridget, Fiorentino gets over on attitude more than pulchritude.

While Fiorentino's physique won't make women viewers jealous, many respond enthusiastically to the sex scene where Bridget rides Berg's Mike against a fence behind the bar. In fact, there's hardly a standard bedroom scene: most of the sex is of the right-now kind. And while both seem to enjoy themselves a lot, Bridget is clearly in control, emotionally and physically.

In recent years, we've gotten used to zaftig super-women like Xena throwing men around. But perhaps not since the heyday of Diana Rigg on `The Avengers' has there been a thin, flat-chested woman who dominates males like Linda Fiorentino takes care of business here. Bridget certainly isn't a role model, but her enthusiasm for her work is infectious.

This movie also has the courage of its convictions. If it seems amoral, well just about every Arnold Schwartzenegger movie celebrates massive killing by so-called `good guys.' The only difference between this movie and Hollywood's standard murderous agit-prop is that `The Last Seduction' has a brain.

Unfortunately, great work doesn't always bring great rewards. Fiorentino was good in Kevin Smith's ramshackle low-budget `Dogma,' only to be dissed by the director. She was one of the