Michael Neumann Make way for yet another ersatz neo-noir thriller, fraught with danger, romance, corruption and, in this case, a sloppy murder plot so transparent that any amateur gumshoe would see through it in ten minutes flat. The target is Meg Tilly, an unmarried heiress with a passion for boating; the hunter is Rob Lowe, a yachting pilot with a shadowy past. Unfortunately, the script leaves nothing to the imagination, generating a token measure of suspense by simply adding another plot twist at twenty-minute intervals. Lowe's motivations are thus constantly shifted in and out of doubt, but the actor isn't up to the challenge of investing his character with any ambiguity (leaving, as a result, a very pretty blank spot on the screen). Worse yet, the irony of the ending is spoiled by an element of chance (specifically, a strategically placed rat) too flimsy to support the heroic suspension of disbelief needed to make the film work.

n_r_koch I liked it. Setting and script are interesting, though not always especially original-- some of the plot twists seem to be thrown in because the story starts to lag. There is one fairly steamy sex scene between Lowe and Tilly, from the days when audiences liked sex scenes that didn't look like rape scenes.As in so many films since the 1960s, the acting is so technically skilled and low-key it can fool an audience into thinking it's not acting at all...until they see the same actors playing totally different roles in other movies. Tilly is just superb; you don't see her at all, you just see the shy heiress. Even pretty-boy Lowe is believable in an absurd role that must have been hard to play (among other things, in his opening love scene, he hides the family jewels behind a door with a slick little move). Cattrall, in a small part, is excellent-- her sloppy character just seems to have turned up. And Glover (with messed-up Caesar hairdo) is his usual effectively spooky self as the villain. Delaney doesn't have a lot to do but she's loose and convincing whenever she's on.You can tell this one was written for the screen by the name the writer chose for the heiress: "Olivia Lawrence".

Mister_Gordon_Shumway A handsome gigolo (Rob Lowe) charms his way into the life of a beautiful young woman, heiress to a multi-million dollar fortune. After the loss of her mother, she lives with her selfish and domineering stepfather, a ruthless cad intent on controlling both his stepdaughter's inheritance and her relationships. The local police officer also shows emotional interest in the heiress, having known her since childhood. But who can she really trust? 'Masquerade' was filmed around the time of 'Bad Influence' and Rob Lowe's scandal --- a sometimes underrated actor who, for a while, was typecast as the bad boy (see 'Waynes World', 'Tommy Boy' and 'Austin Powers'). Lowe has nevertheless proved his versatility as an actor with leading roles in films such as Stephen King's 'The Stand' (a deaf mute), Frank and Jesse (as Jesse James) and Stephen King's 'Salems Lot' (2005). He adopts the role of deceptive gigolo with veritable ease, appearing simultaneously charming and devious. It is the script that inevitably lets the film down.In short it is a dark and moody thriller, which focuses on the themes of money and greed, trust and betrayal. It is reasonably-paced and contains a multitude of twists and turns, though could be a bit more lively in places. Furthermore, it boasts a talented supporting cast that includes Meg Tilly, Doug Savant, John Glover and Kim Cattrall.Matthew J Lee-Williams, Review.

Robert J. Maxwell Money, mayhem, and sex. How can you go wrong? Meg Tilly, unglamorized, is a naive teen-aged graduate of a Catholic school. She makes her other-worldly way back to her REALLY dysfunctional, rambling mansion in Easthampton, where her villainous stepfather (John Glover, hammy but great!) is staggering around, usually three sheets to the wind, and entertaining his girl friend, Dana Delaney (Miss Briscoe, Lenny's sister-in-law). The script has given Tilly's mother the deep six before the movie starts.Also present, the multi-talented Rob Lowe who, were he any worse an actor, could sink this vessel faster than a horde of mutant torpedo worms. As it is, he's a "superb captain", as someone calls him. His job seems to be skippering the racing sloops of very rich people so skillfully that they beat the racing sloops of other very rich people.Lowe has assignations with the slutty Kim Cattrall, somebody else's wife. Very racy dialog. Lowe gives Cattrall a birthday present, a pair of skimpy black panties. Cattrall: "You want me to wear these?" Lowe: "I can't bite them off you if you don't." Avast there. Here comes a spoiler that may take the wind out of your sails. Lowe is not what he seems. Actually, he's in cahoots with Tilly's step-father and the town cop. The three of them decide that Meg Tilly's several hundreds of millions of dollars is too burdensome for one young woman, so they are going to have Lowe seduce her, marry her, and eliminate her -- in that order -- so that they can split up her assets three ways.The plan goes awry. Lowe begins to feel affectionate towards Tilly, especially after they are as married as matched pelican hooks and she becomes pregnant. He shoots and kills Glover. Dana Delaney, Glover's squeeze, gets suspicious and is found hanging by a belt. The corrupt cop notices these little incidents and tries to blow up Tilly by tinkering with the gas line aboard her sloop, the Obsession. In a frantic attempt to save Tilly, Lowe is hoist by the cop's petard. In the cop's office, Tilly comes to grasp nature of the plan by an act of spiritually inspired intuition, just from glimpsing a photo of the three conspirators pinned to the cop's wall. (An old snapshot of three smiling men holding up a fish, and she twigs.) The cop attacks her with a marlinspike or something and tries to stove in her head. And he's a big, burly guy too. But those nuns turn out tough little babes and he can't do more than rip her shirt a bit before she propels him through the window to his death below.John Williams' lush score practically swoons at the end as Tilly stands bravely alone, knowing that Lowe, though now in Davey Jones' locker, REALLY loved her. This ending prompts a question, though. She now has all those millions and that huge beachfront mansion to herself now, doesn't she? So what is her phone number? And does she like redheads? Not much acting is really required in a piece like this. But John Glover is sublime as the villain. He always is. Rob Lowe, blandly handsome, like a department store mannequin, should be relieved of his watch and sent below. Meg Tilly is more complicated. She has a voice that's at once diminutive and husky. She seems to have been given a minimum of makeup, so her blemishes and pimples show on her pale face and shoulders. And that haircut! Blackbeard the Pirate looked more glamorous, even with the smoking gunpowder fuzes tied in his tresses. I suppose many eyes seem to tilt from inner canthus upward, but Tilly's are alarming. Her father was Chinese, and she herself has been a dancer and now an author, so she gets my vote.Kim Cattrall is a snoot but has some of the best lines. "While you were plugging your stepfather, your husband was plugging me -- and he was great!" Well, it's not really a dirty movie though. Two scenes of Cattrall topless and one of simulated sex between Lowe and Tilly. Oh, and a shot of Lowe's buns, which reminded me that on a ship you should always spit to leeward.There's another thing. I don't know if I should bother mentioning it because I'm not sure it's there, although there's a place for it in the plot. Still, I want to stay in the channel here. Red, right, returning, y'know. There's a bit of a homoerotic element in the relationship between Lowe and the conspiratorial cop. Lowe visits the cop at home. The cop is in bed and gets out to have a serious engagement with Lowe. He's all muscles, his head included, and he's wearing only a pair of skivvies, and when he threatens Lowe, he thrusts his face almost against Lowe's, takes Lowe's cheeks and squeezes them together so that Lowe's lips are pursed, and I'm thinking two more inches and this is a gay scene.This romantic thriller isn't for everyone's tastes, I would guess, but I kind of enjoyed it, partly because I like the Hamptons and spent a lot of summers there as a youth. Well -- Sag Harbor, actually, in the modest house of some friends, acquired years before the area became uninhabitable for anyone except cosmetic surgeons, when the community was so compact and unprepossesing that, in a sandy wood just past the edge of town, you could sit and watch the foxes stare back at you, sometimes scratching their pointed black ears with their tiny and precise black paws. Red foxes. Auburn foxes. Unquestionably extinguished by development. Now we have this movie about people fighting over hundreds of millions of dollars, none of whom has had a selfless thought in their entire lives.