SnoopyStyle Nelson Crowe (Laurence Fishburne) is a CIA operative who was downsized after a dispute over a missing bribe of $50k in gold. Vic Grimes (Frank Langella) hires him for his company "The Toolshed" which blackmails and bribes for their corporate clients. Grimes and Margaret Wells (Ellen Barkin) are working to bribe State Supreme Court Judge Beach for their client Walter Curl. Wells comes to Crowe with a scheme to take over The Toolshed from Crowe.It's a lot of noir moody style. There is not much attention paid to provide any rooting interesting for the characters. It's a lot of cold distant characters and loads of dark hard-boiled cool style. It's so cool that there is no heat in it even with the sizzling Barkin. There is not enough excitement or tension. These are great actors and they almost make this work. The schemes, blackmail, brides and double-cross do get to be questionable. The problem is that I stop caring about halfway through.

bob the moo Thrown out of the CIA for be suspected of stealing gold that he denies stealing, Nelson Crowe finds himself a former spook looking for work in the private sector. This brings him to the attention of an organisation run by Vic Grimes, one that excels in blackmail and corruption for a fee. Recruited by Margaret Wells, Crowe soon finds himself in deep and almost immediately winning the trust of Wells. She repays this trust by offering him joint control of the Toolshed – in return for murdering Grimes. Meanwhile Crowe reports back to the CIA that the first stage of his infiltration has been successful but the CIA have other ideas of how his mission will end; meanwhile the word 'trust' loses any meaning it may have once had as the various sides jostle to come out on top.The concept of a thriller involving CIA operatives and shady goings on combined with the question 'who can you trust?' will be nothing new to anybody and, for this reason, this film doesn't really do anything wrong but doesn't do anything special either. The plot is full of twists and turns but none of them are really surprisingly or even that interesting; meanwhile the 'thriller' aspect of the film never really gets up to speed and a big problem with it is the delivery. The story is a rather plodding drama at times and it could have done with being a lot slicker – dark but slick. Without many thrills the plot sags easily and the audience may feel almost bored at times; considering the stakes are murder, corruption and betrayal it is a surprising that it is so flat. The dialogue also suffers from being a bit flat; contrast it with the sparkling dialogue of David Mamet (in Spartan for example) and this just feels clunky and lacking in effort.Of course having a great cast helps to counteract that but there is only so much that they can do at times but they still manage to have a good presence and add to the material. Barkin is sexy, manipulative, needy and cold all by turns – it is a role she can do very well and she rises above the material here. The rest of the leads rely on presence more than performance but they mostly succeed. Fishburne is always interesting and he excels at tough and cool, making a good lead. Langella is cool professionalism and suits his character well. Beach is good; Stiers is a well-known face and fits his minor role well while Spalding Gray is a rather sad reminder of his suicide but he is very good in his character. Of course it is Barkin and Fishburne that dominate the film and both are pretty strong, actually making up for wider delivery problems and making the material feel better than it is.Overall this is nothing special but it does enough to be worth watching once. The cast provide strong performances with good screen presences all round but the delivery is roundly flat and never gets as tight or thrilling as other films in the genre effortlessly manage. The plot is old news and the dialogue feels flat and lacking in imagination and effort, rather taking the life out of the film and making it feel a lot more workmanlike than the names in the cast list would suggest it could be.

jmorrison-2 Interesting, but oddly emotionless movie about corporate covert operatives. You can't quite get a handle on the characters, and the dialog is strangely void of real, personal interaction. At times, it's almost like listening to robots talk. The only real emoting is done by Ellen Barkin. It's hard to get a handle on her character; one minute she's coldly sneering at somebody, the next she's got neediness radiating from her eyes.Frank Langella plays the only seemingly decent human being in the whole bunch, even though he runs a covert company, which works at corporate espionage; bringing to bear any disgusting technique which will benefit his client's bottom line. Laurence Fishburne is very good in this as a coldly calculating operative. He oozes cool and menace as a ruthless agent, who will do whatever it takes to get the job done. Very interesting movie to watch, but these are people I hope to never come across.

gridoon Underrated, gripping thriller was a big box-office failure but it deserves a second chance on home video. Tightly plotted (there's always something happening, but the complications never get too confusing) and smoothly directed, it's a movie that knows how to keep you absorbed, even though its nihilistic ending is slightly cliched. Give it a try. (***)