Twilight
Starring: Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, Reese Witherspoon, Stockard Channing
Price: $4.31
Would not it be in 1998 with a cast of Hollywood veteran best, you could swear that Twilight was a movie from the 1940s - the kind of intelligent secret that Humphrey Bogart have to feel at home. To be sure, that was precisely the intention of the director and co-writer Robert Benton (in collaboration with Nobody's Fool writer Richard Russo), but the film is also the blessing of his curse. Benton and Russo are so enthusiastic about vintage mystery plots and characters that their movie nearly succumbs to the burden of old familiarity. As the title suggests, the film is the aging signs that are used by Newman as a Private Eye, which is almost literally the last legs, are all on the downhill of life, the Hollywood glory days behind him. Newman's character lives in the luxury home of two fading stars (Gene Hackman, Susan Sarandon), who may or may not be in a murder plot, including a colleague from the old Newman (James Garner). Regardless of whether they are in the truest sense of the word their last days (as in the case of Hackman character) or just grasping for some comfort in their twilight years, these characters with the kind of world, intelligent dialogue, the better movies of Hollywood in the past. But while Twilight gives Newman yet another role to match, as in a favorite old suit, the film is so low-key that some viewers find it difficult to sit. That is a shame, because the bombastic, frenetically paced films that dominated the 1990s have reduced our collective ability to ensure the solid, character-driven film Twilight tradition that attempts to revive. - Jeff Shannon
Price: $4.31
Would not it be in 1998 with a cast of Hollywood veteran best, you could swear that Twilight was a movie from the 1940s - the kind of intelligent secret that Humphrey Bogart have to feel at home. To be sure, that was precisely the intention of the director and co-writer Robert Benton (in collaboration with Nobody's Fool writer Richard Russo), but the film is also the blessing of his curse. Benton and Russo are so enthusiastic about vintage mystery plots and characters that their movie nearly succumbs to the burden of old familiarity. As the title suggests, the film is the aging signs that are used by Newman as a Private Eye, which is almost literally the last legs, are all on the downhill of life, the Hollywood glory days behind him. Newman's character lives in the luxury home of two fading stars (Gene Hackman, Susan Sarandon), who may or may not be in a murder plot, including a colleague from the old Newman (James Garner). Regardless of whether they are in the truest sense of the word their last days (as in the case of Hackman character) or just grasping for some comfort in their twilight years, these characters with the kind of world, intelligent dialogue, the better movies of Hollywood in the past. But while Twilight gives Newman yet another role to match, as in a favorite old suit, the film is so low-key that some viewers find it difficult to sit. That is a shame, because the bombastic, frenetically paced films that dominated the 1990s have reduced our collective ability to ensure the solid, character-driven film Twilight tradition that attempts to revive. - Jeff Shannon
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