Andrew Davis 

  • Chain Reaction (1996)

    Chain Reaction (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, On TV, April 2020) There is something almost overwhelmingly 1990s about watching Chain Reaction again, nearly 25 years later. We’ve got young avatars of Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman and Rachel Weisz (plus Fred Ward) running around, unaware that their careers would blossom for another quarter-century. We’ve got the usual conspiracy theory nonsense about alternate energy. We have overblown action sequences, the best and most ludicrous of those being Reeves outrunning a nuclear-grade explosion on a motorcycle. (Alas, it only happens fifteen minutes in, not leaving much for the rest.) Director Andrew Davis’ execution is strictly by the books of 1980s–1990s thrillers and has not unpleasantly aged in the interim. The mid-1990s do feel much nicer now from the vantage point of a global pandemic, although much of this comfort is undercut by the decision to set this film in wintry Chicago and Washington, DC—the visuals are considerably grayer and duller than if the film had been set in a sunnier environment. With a quarter-century’s hindsight, I believe that this is still the only major movie to ever feature the word “sonoluminescence.” Otherwise, this is a familiar thriller-type kind of plot—scientists on the run, evil conspiracy to shut down their project, helicopters and chases and big holes in the ground. The plot makes little sense, as it mixes scientific research with shadowy well-financed research projects, but hey—we’re not here for a treatise on the military-scientific complex as much as guns and explosions. I remember seeing Chain Reaction in the late 1990s and not being overly impressed, and a second viewing now doesn’t change my mind much… although I have to admit that its period details are now settling into a nice little patina.

  • A Perfect Murder (1998)

    A Perfect Murder (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2015) Some good movies just slip by unseen, but the beauty of endless reruns is that sooner or later, they come back.  So it is that I was able to catch up on old-fashioned thriller A Perfect Murder, adapted from classic Hitchcock thriller Dial M For Murder but more than good enough on its own.  The first few minutes all pile up the mini-revelations, as a woman (a young-looking Gwyneth Paltrow) is revealed to be having an affair with a man who is further revealed (by her husband, no less) as being a career con artist who’s probably up to no good.  A deal is made; money for murder for money, the husband paying the con man to get rid of his wife so that her inheritance can shore up his bad investments.  It’s already twisted, but there’s more to come, with murder and suspense aplenty.  Michael Douglas can play the wealthy heavy like no others, while Paltrow looks suitably vulnerable as the heroine of the film.  Director Andrew Davis keeps things moving, the film has that pleasant mid-nineties sheen and the suspense sequences do have a classic quality to them despite the odd eruption of blood.  It amounts to a decent time, perhaps a bit overlong but not outrageously so.  A Perfect Murder remains a thriller in the classical mode, and that’s not an inconsequential advantage at a time where we seem to have moved a bit too much beyond the classical.