The This World . Gambit Weekly . 11-10-97

The This World

DIRECTED BY: Michael Oblowitz

REVIEWED: 11-10-97

Adapted from a Jim Thompson short story, director Michael Oblowitz and writer Larry Gross's This World, Then the Fireworks proves fatally indecisive. Is it true noir, like such other Thompson adaptations as After Dark, My Sweet and The Grifters, or is it a campy parody of such works? Perhaps it's trying somehow to be both. It certainly succeeds at being neither.

This World stars Billy Zane and Gina Gershon as Marty and Carol, fraternal twins trying in their young adulthood to overcome the trauma they suffered as children, when they were spattered with blood and brain tissue as their naked father shot to death the husband of the woman he was caught in bed with. Marty has responded by marrying a 400-pound woman and becoming a violent anti-authoritarian. Carol has become a prostitute. Actually, they'd like to just marry each other, an idea that makes their mother (Rue McClanahan) want to puke.

I can't say that This World ever develops much in the way of a coherent narrative. There's something about getting a blond policewoman to sell her house. (No, I'm not kidding.) That seems largely a pretext for having Sheryl Lee play the cop. And that, of course, means breasts and bottoms hey, so who's complaining? At its best, the film lets Marty deliver wild, philosophical rants against injustice, organized religion and taxation. At its worst, Marty speaks just about every tough-guy cliche ever imagined by pulp-fiction hacks. The skin is smooth and lovely, but the acting all around is very close to awful.

--Rick Barton

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