PALMETTO (51)

Directed by: Volker Schlondorff

Starring: Woody Harrelson, Elisabeth Shue, Gina Gershon, Chloe Sevigny

The Pitch: An ex-con is ensnared into helping a rich man's wife with the faked kidnapping of her step-daughter.

Theo Sez: A writer who can't write, a hero who orders drinks without drinking them, a femme fatale who puts cigarettes in her mouth but doesn't light them - and a neo-noir that never quite ignites, though the cast works hard and all the ingredients are in place. Indeed, the film is so intent on leaving nothing out - from the wailing sax on the soundtrack to the louvred lighting and rainswept streets - that you start to suspect an intentional self-parody, an impression reinforced by the air of shaggy-dog comedy throughout the script (by E. Max Frye - who also wrote SOMETHING WILD, and seems to have a thing for weak men manipulated by strong, rather trampy women). All of which may or may not be a good idea - as the film shows when it strays into WOMAN IN THE WINDOW territory, with our guilty-as-sin hero (considered above suspicion) accompanying the police on their investigations, this old genre can still cut the mustard if done straight - but it does result in a very amusing cartoon, pneumatically sleazy and decked out in shiny visuals. Sexist pigs will salute the costume designer, who alternates the ladies between skintight dresses and (in the case of the lovely Sevigny) no dresses at all ; classic-movie buffs may confine themselves to noting that Michael Rapaport, in dyed-black hair and thin moustache, looks eerily like the young Keenan Wynn.