In 2002, filmmaker Brian De Palma’s Femme Fatale flopped at the box office, earning back not even half of what was invested. Still, compared to the director’s previous two big-budget movies (Mission: Impossible and Mission to Mars), this erotic thriller was a small project, envisioned as a personal, classic De Palma movie in every respect. It should therefore come as no surprise that Femme Fatal, which the director also wrote the screenplay for, would eventually become a cult classic, alongside his other films such as Blow Out (1981), Body Double (1984) or Carlito’s Way (1993). The film’s female protagonist played by Rebecca Romijn is a former con-woman, forced to come to terms with her past after a photo made by Antonio Banderas’ Spanish paparazzo puts her disgruntled ex-colleagues on her tail.
In true De Palma fashion, the director makes sure that the only thing we can come to expect is the unexpected, utilizing plot points that center around heists and suicides, double identities and double-crosses, revenge-seeking ex-cons and sexual manipulations, only to deliver a final twist no one could have seen coming. Throw Thierry Arbogast’s impressive cinematography style and Bill Pankow’s precise editing into the mix and what you get is a bold and exciting thriller celebrating a fierce and intelligent woman coming up on top.
In 1972 a neophyte Spanish media company created a rare platform for artists to explore classic genre imagery with a sophisticated cinematic sensibility.
After Peter Hyams made a successful TV movie called "Goodnight, My Love", producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler approached him with the desire of...
