Python Hyena Goodbye Lover (1998): Dir: Roland Joffe / Cast: Don Johnson, Patricia Arquette, Dermot Mulroney, Mary Louise Parker, Ellen DeGeneres: Strange dark comedy that is both clever and insulting. There is no love or lovers in this film, only deceit, lust and murder. Don Johnson plays a big corporate boss unable to control his aggressive brother. He is having an affair with Patricia Arquette who is married to his brother. When Johnson becomes involved with Mary-Louise Parker he breaks contact with Arquette who threatens blackmail. He receives a threatening call from his brother, which leads to murder. Subplot involving the doctor is not necessary and the sequence between Johnson and Arquette at Church is revolting. Then there is that Sound of Music cassette that plays a role of its own. Director Roland Joffe keeps everything uncertain with Arquette well cast as the vixen poisoning the minds of all for the sake of control. Dermot Mulroney plays the drunken aggressive brother. Johnson is excellent in the lead struggling to maintain a certain level of dignity in the midst of a police investigation. Parker is also superb as the lover who also becomes entangled in the web of deceit. Ellen DeGeneres is terrific playing a cynical cop investigating the crime and spewing one-liners. Strong theme regarding deceit marred with aggressive sex, which viewers will either engage or bid farewell. Score: 6 / 10

elshikh4 This is brilliant movie for sure. It makes you think, enjoy and sadden as well ! The basis of the non-stop deception and killing is just super, managing to give you both the thriller time and the deep melancholic meaning (the sadness part!). It was also some kind of prophecy about the widespread presence of the twist technique in a lot of the American movies in the next decade. Yet here it was more sane to a classic status.I liked the way this movie's dirty world was shown, along with its deformed dictionary of relationships where there is no brotherhood (the brother kills his brother), no happy marriage (the husband cheats on his wife) and there is no real friendship at all, even the one who finds himself in love so refuses to betray it (Johnson when rejects his affair with Arquette) he becomes, according to this formula, the weakest person in such a world so he naturally must be the first to die, because pure love in such circumstances is a sign of murderous weakness ! (Arquette)'s character herself was pushed by her love to commit a crime (killing her husband and his mistress) yet blinded by this love she didn't do it thoroughly however she got away with it ONLY by the power of money…the new rescuer love.Harmonize with that many swift but so effective points; for instance beginning the movie with an act of obscenity taking place in a church, while everyone there thinks How great and imposing; that summarized - in smartly ironic way - the whole disordered logic of this cosmos, so its double-faced nature.So it was bright also to make the field of the leads' business center around publicity (read : duplicity) and relating that at the last shot to the political figure when appears so polished while in the same time the 2 female killers are loose and innocent more than ever; like saying nicely what a world of colored lying we live in.Look at the passion of "Sound of Music" as a good irony between the ethereal spirit of music as perfect embodiment for love so its power of changing on one side and the translation of all of that according to our ugly modern time on the other side where there is no sound or love but for the green !Or look at the little appearance of the character of the serial killer; firstly as someone this world produces and needs, so secondly as someone with all the evil in the world doesn't have a chance in front of 2 greedy and sharp women, not because simply 2 killers are more powerful than 1, but because this is a crazily violent world where you're whether deadly or dead ! Thus it was a priori to have the only character that doesn't belong to this formula (DeGeneres' partner) as so naive (even if he's intelligent), so dull and so queer expressly when he doesn't think about making money or being bloody opportunist, or even suspects something dirty around.And what a dark message this movie delivers eventually about love in today's world whereas it ends its events with 2 women live for enjoying money and money only. It was smart move not to show them as lesbians because that would've transformed their relationship into a case the emotion got to do something with it, but who said that there is originally a smell of love in this very sick world ?!As for the dialog it got some of the cleverest lines I've ever heard in a movie, meaning of course all what was written for Ellen DeGeneres' character as the melancholically cynical yet deeply materialistic investigator, making it one of the most memorable characters in the history of Noir film. Save the way DeGeneres discovers the whole matter at the end so easily to fabricated extent, it's fun like a remarkable black comedy about the despotism of the materialism in our present life. Delivering the pessimistic message of "goodbye love" cynically as it should be. P.S : there is amazing Indian remake 10 years after (yes, believe it or not it is AMAZING !) which could make you wonder did Goodbye Lover utilize all of its chances or not?!

gradyharp GOODBYE LOVER slipped by a lot of viewers when it was released in 1998 and it is only now while on DVD that the quality of this little tongue-in-cheek film noir is gaining steady popularity. And that is basically due to a superb cast of fine actors who obviously are enjoying every minute of the project.Sandra (Patricia Arquette) is a girl of somewhat lethal ambition, married to Jake (Dermot Mulroney) but having an affair with Jake's brother Ben (Don Johnson) who is also having an affair with his secretary Peggy (Mary-Louise Parker). The action quickens when the dark murder-for-insurance angle appears, but this also opens the door for the entrance of detective Pompano (Ellen DeGeneres) and her oingo-boingo partner Rollins (Ray McKinnon) who set about solving the tangled mysteries. The results create a very funny, dark humored movie that sparkles in the hands of all of the actors, especially with DeGeneres and Arquette.A great movie? No, but one that is a lot of fun as directed with an astute grasp of the medium by Roland Joffé

svw I just caught the last half hour of this darkly comical movie and was greatly entertained. Unconventional script, sharp dialogue, unpredictable twists, clever use of film references (Sound of Music!), unrestrained waving of guns and splattering of stage blood.Most of all, I was pleased to discover that Ellen Degeneres is genuinely witty and clever when she wants to be, and has excellent deadpan comic timing. Having only seen her in dreadful anodyne TV sitcoms before, her cynical, edgy, laconic character in this film was quite a revelation. Go, Ellen! Don't waste yourself on primetime television.