The Last Seduction

John Dahl, USA 1994, 110 minutes

This gripping neo-noir definitely gives bang for its buck: black humour, some devious twists and cracking dialogue. However, one thing stands out above all else: Linda Fiorentino as femme fatale Bridget. She delivers a searing performance, which, but for the cruel fact of the film being broadcast on TV before going into cinemas, would have seen her as a real contender for that years Best Actres s Oscar. Every second she's onscreen Fiorentino is the embodiment of sex, power and ruthlessness.

The beautiful and acerbic Bridget has the American Dream: living in New York, with a comfortable lifestyle and doctor husband, Clay (Bill Paxton), but it quickly becomes clear that she is not content with her lot. She easily exerts control over men through her looks and attitude, and convinces her weak and greedy husband to sell pharmacy grade cocaine to gangsters before running off with the loot and hiding herself in the American suburbs.

Soon becoming bored of small town Buffalo, Bridget hooks up with the hapless Mike, played by Peter Berg. He satisfies her sexual cravings, and isnt smart enough to threaten her plans. In addition he takes her mind off her the one thing she misses from her old life, the city of New York (note how her chosen pseudonym is almost an anagram). When Clay starts sending hired thugs after Bridget, she realises she has a ready-made patsy to take the fall.

So follows a slick, elaborate cat and mouse game, where sex and violence inevitably intertwine. As the films winds its way to the final act and coda, the audience is torn between wanting to see Bridget finally get her comeuppance, and desperately hoping she gets away with her audacious plan.

Review by Claire Devlin
Written for EUFS Programme Autumn 2007

With a trio of modest little movies - Kill Me Again, Red Rock West, and The Last Seduction - John Dahl has established himself as a candidate for the title `current king of the neo-noir'.

Tired of working in tele-sales, Bridget (Linda Fiorentino) persuades her doctor husband, Clay (Bill Pullman), to sell $700,000 worth of pharmaceutical cocaine. Bridget then runs off with the money. Hiding out in a small town, she changes her name and takes a job in an insurance company, waiting for the heat to die down. Needless to say, Clay isn't pleased, and hires a PI to track her down. But Bridget has plans of her own, involving new lover and fall guy Mike. Will she get away with murder?

The Last Seduction, then, obviously plays upon the femme fatale motif of the 1940s noirs, but without the constraints of the studio code in the handling of sex or the mandatory requirement for a crime-does-not-pay ending. Thus, we can directly compare the double entendres of The Big Sleep with the straight-forward "let's fuck" of The Last Seduction. Of course, many neo-noirs (e.g. Chinatown, Body Heat, Black Widow) have already exploited these freedoms. Hence, compared to Franklin's Devil in a Blue Dress, which explores the noir world from the much less familiar black perspective, The Last Seduction isn't exactly innovative. Nevertheless, it's all very nicely done and worth a look - especially for Linda Fiorentino's brilliantly smart and sexy performance as the über-bitch Bridget, manipulating every dumb male who comes her way (could Clay be a symbolic name?).

Its also worth considering The Last Seduction as a companion piece/mirror image to Dahl's own Red Rock West. There, he gave us neo-noir from the fall-guy's perspective. Nicolas Cage's dumb but honest drifter is victim to all the schemers around him, but eventually wins through. Personally, I'd love to see Dahl try combining the Cage and Fiorentino type characters into a single film, giving us some severe confusions over who to root for. Oh well, I can dream...

"Linda Fiorentino... one of the screen's most formidable femmes fatales ever in a sexy and polished performance" - Variety

Review by Keith Brown
Taken from EUFS Programme 1996-97