The greatest quandary I face with 'Body Heat', along with many of the film's genre contemporaries, is the stratospheric degree of genre evocation that the film employs. It may not suffer the same trappings of more recent noirs such as Michael Winterbottom's 'The Killer Inside Me' -- big-budget period reconstructions of film noir found in the candy sampler boxes of film genres; neo-noirs that stink of abecedarian cinephilia, void of life and individual identity; models displayed through the window fronts of cavernous department stores that are clean and neatly arranged, but lacking a personal touch -, but it's studied academia toward the dialogue and staples of noir deny it an edge, indeed even a soupcon of spontaneity. The meditative pace can be relished, and the cinematography is general... |
Rating of
3/4 |
