directed by John Dahl
Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) is married to Clay (Bill Pullman), who is selling drugs illegally. He makes a big score. She makes a remark and he slaps her. She runs off with the cash while he is in the shower. She winds up in western New York. She wants a divorce. Frank (J.T. Walsh), her lawyer, tells her to lay low.
She follows Frank's advice. She hunkers down in a small town not far from Buffalo, NY. She gets a job at an insurance company, under an assumed name. She meets Mike (Peter Berg). She isn't interested in anything other than sex, but he is. He thinks his life has turned a corner. She just wants to have sex. He gets upset that she doesn't seem to want anything other than sex.
Clay owes money to a loan shark. He needs the money.to pay off the loan shark. He hires a private eye (Bill Nunn) to track her down. The private eye eventually finds her but she finds a way to deal with him. Another private eye is sent to keep an eye on Bridget. She deals with him too.
Mike's eagerness to connect with Bridget leads her to try and get him to help her do something illegal. She finds a woman who's husband beats her and is cheating on her. She wants to help the woman by killing her husband. The woman wants her husband dead. Bridget asks Mike for help doing the job, but he doesn't want to have anything to do with it.
Bridget goes to Buffalo and digs up some dirt on Mike. She talks to his ex-wife. She convinces Mike that she did the job, killed the cheating husband. She wants him to kill someone in order to prove his love and loyalty. The man she wants him to kill is another scumbag. He finally agrees to do the job. What she doesn't tell him is that the man she wants him to kill is her husband.
Thoughts
Dean Norris has a small part in this movie. He is best known to me for playing Hank Schrader in Breaking Bad. He was also in Starship Troopers (1997).
John Dahl directed this movie. He has directed episodes of a number of TV shows that I have seen (United States of Tara, Breaking Bad, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, Arrow, The Americans) but the only other movie of his that I have any distinct recollection of is Kill Me Again (1989) which starred Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley.
I saw this movie before, probably 25 years ago. I don't remember exactly when. I'm positive that I didn't see it when it was first released. I probably saw it on VHS. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've watched it since then. There were a few key points I remembered but there were a lot of details that I forgot.
I wouldn't say this is a great movie but it's a good one. It was worth seeing again. I wasn't sure if the ending would satisfy me. I recalled that she got away in the end and Mike did not. I didn't remember some of the twists that emerged at the end of the movie.
I didn't find either Bridget or Mike to be sympathetic. Everyone in this movie was guilty to one degree or another. There's enough there is in the end to satisfy but I didn't feel satisfied until the very end. It was enough but it didn't impress me terribly. I got a decent meal but no more.
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