she was the femme in ” la femme nikita . ”
he was the baldwin in ” backdraft , ” ” sliver , ” and ” fair game ” ( with cindy crawford ) .
together , anne parillaud and william baldwin conspire to make ” shattered image ” the biggest piece of hooey since the stallone/stone ” thriller ” ” the specialist . ”
the film poses the question ” what if the life you’re living now is really a dream , and your dreams reality ? ”
it’s either about a woman who’s haunted by a recurring ( and recurring and recurring ) nightmare that she’s a hired assassin , or it’s about a hired assassin who’s haunted by a recurring ( and recurring and recurring ) nightmare that she’s honeymooning with william baldwin in jamaica .
it doesn’t much matter and believe me by the time ” shattered image ” runs its painful and pedestrian course you won’t care .
these two lives , with parillaud looking like siouxsie sioux with a black wig , black emotionless eyes , and black leather clothing in the seattle-based assassin scenes , and moping around like karen carpenter in the jamaica scenes , play out endlessly throughout the film and the result is it’s now * twice * as boring as it might have been .
it’s not that complicated plots can’t be entertaining .
of course it helps if you have interesting characters , crisp dialogue , and a modicum of style .
” shattered image ” isn’t complex , it’s just stupid .
and boring .
parillaud and baldwin , who aren’t exactly shakespearean material to begin with , are saddled with such leaden dialogue that their characters have zero chance of breaking free of their cardboard confines .
lines like :
” you don’t beg , you insist .
i like that in a woman . ”
that’s parillaud’s character talking . . .
to her cat !
and :
” you’re not the reason i couldn’t care less about you . ”
huh ?
and this wonderful bathroom interchange early in the film :
” if you give me a couple of minutes you know i’ll charm the pants off you . ”
” i don’t have that kind of time . ”
talking of pants , parillaud has her clothes off faster than you can say ” point of no return . ”
we have come to expect this from billy baldwin , but it might have been nice to have learned something about their characters first .
but there’s nothing to learn .
karen is as interesting as a cereal box , a someone’s-out-to-get-me crybaby who imagines the voice at the other end of the phone , the stranger who sends her flowers , maybe even her husband himself , is her would-be killer .
siouxsie is the chromium cool , tough-as-nails crack killing machine who shoots out a couple of mirrors in order to justify the film’s meaningless stock title .
baldwin seems more interested in parillaud’s nest egg ( so that he can pave paradise and put up a parking lot ) than he does in her .
each time graham greene shows up he gets killed .
barbet schroeder ( ” reversal of fortune ” ) co-produced and should be ashamed of himself .
every now and again it’s fun to watch a really bad movie .
and every now and again , as ” shattered image ” makes agonizingly clear , it isn’t .