It's hard not to regard the title of this tepid noir by Robert Benton as
prophetic of the legendary careers of stars Paul Newman and Gene Hackman. In a
role reminiscent of Harper and The Drowning Pool, Newman is Harry
Ross, private investigator, now retired after an incident involving an
accidentally discharged handgun that opens and is the best part of the film.
These days he's a live-in assistant at the palatial Hollywood estate of old pal
Jack Ames (Hackman), a famous actor now stricken with cancer -- keeping company
with his host's still nubile wife, Catherine (Susan Sarandon), who teases Harry
by swimming nude in the pool, and their daughter, Mel (a blithely topless Reese
Witherspoon), the object of Harry's ill-fated opening-scene adventure, who
treats him with disdain.
Jack asks Harry to look into some people who are blackmailing him; What
follows is breezy, predictable, and incoherent, with the legendary cast evoking
past greatness long enough to underscore the present movie's inadequacies.
Among those is Sarandon, who is just too nurturing, too damn liberal, to
be a convincing femme fatale. Benton gets the sun-faded LA look down right, but
with its inconsequential and sometimes tasteless plot dodderings (was Harry
castrated? what will that numbnuts Hispanic chauffeur do next?), Twilight
will probably ease its way into early box-office retirement.
--Peter Keough
Full Length Reviews
Twilight 
Twilight 
Twilight 
Capsule Reviews
Twilight 
Twilight 
Other Films by Robert Benton
Nobody's Fool 
Film Vault Suggested Links
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil 
The General's Daughter 
Dolores Claiborne 
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