Gone Dark (aka The Limit) — directed by Lewin Webb — Crime Drama. An elderly woman is suspected by a drug-addicted policewoman of stashing a fortune in drugs and holds her at bay to find it. 83 minutes Color 2004.
**
Claire Forlani makes a disastrous mis-strategy in playing this part. It is a two-fold error. The first and dominant error is to play her as self-pitying, which means that, since she is always whiningly sorry for herself, one cannot pity her, and so one can never get behind her or exercise any patience on her behalf. Forlani is English, and the second error is to use a Lower East Side Italian accent for her, but never once to get behind the person behind the accent. This reduces her to grimacing and “using” her extraordinarily supple and sensual mouth for effect. Even had this error not been made by the principal actress, the film’s story is improbable in its execution, a fault that might have been remedied by strong narrative editing, but the editing is flaccid. As is the direction by a director who does not seem to know how to rehearse actors at all. We have the great Pete Postlethwaite great in all his scenes, yes, and we have superstar Lauren Bacall, who uses her Virgo cool to play a lady who does not suffer fools gladly, but who does suffer pistols gladly. She chooses to play her character Mae as a lady who sits back and contemplates how things shall unravel, which works, but the director might have given her an alternate or two. The film is entirely lacking in tension and conviction. Forlani describes it as a slice of life, but such a film cannot be that; it can only a highly charged artifact, made entertaining by its suspense, an ingredient the lack of which herein makes the cake fall flat.
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