The Last Seduction represents the peak of the short but interesting directing career of John Dhal who, after his excellent second movie, Red Rock West, in 1994 released this new film noir that has made a lasting impact for its new, and more extreme, depiction of the archetype of the dark lady, a Linda Fiorentino that lends to the lead role not only a breath-taking body but also the joyous and boundless aggressiveness of a true predator, who enjoys the evil she spreads around her not only for the material benefits she gains but also for the pure and sheer pleasure of manipulating, dominating and destroying another human being, preferably a weak man; a female character most likely not seen earlier on screen!
Deprived of an almost certain Oscar as best lead actress due to the early cable release of the movie, Linda Fiorentino, like also John Dhal, would not reach anymore the heights and intensity of this film; after her good performance in Scorsese's After Hour, it could have consolidated her position as a rising cinema star but that it actually proved to be, at only 36 years of age, her swan song, as none of her subsequent roles was able to sustain a career that, after The Last Seduction, seemed very promising.
Well supported by both Bill Pullman as her husband, in more than one way the victim of a lethal wife, and Peter Berg, the clueless, sacrificial and sacrificed lamb, succumbing to the main character's blunt spider strategy, for whom the viewers cannot avoid feeling a resigned compassion, Linda Fiorentino as Bridget Gregory/Wendy Kroy has been able to surge to the position of the darkest lady of all, the most ruthless and happily scrupleless, not only of the classics of the '40s and '50s but also of the new noir revival of the '80s and '90s, pushing well beyond the boundaries already stretched by Kathleen Turner with Body Heat; and it is worth noticing the homages paid by The Last Seduction to both Double Indemnity, mentioned in the script, and Body Heat, with the ending almost identical to Lawrence Kasdan's movie.
The Last Seduction remains, even with the passing of time, an interesting and highly enjoyable movie, with a well structured plot and a script cynic enough that, while orienting the viewers' immediate and more external empathy towards the losers and abused like the husband and the lover, inevitably attracts above all for the deeply rooted and irredeemable protagonist's evil, a sensual devil in stockings that unavoidably mesmerises even when the victim is aware that the only outcome is an eternal perdition.
An unwatchable The Last Seduction II in 1999 luckily didn't have a further episode nor took away anything from John Dahl's best movie, a modern jewel of the noir genre, where, like in Body Heat and unlikely in the apparently more moral, and particularly subject to the Heys Code, classic noirs of the '40s and '50s, evil and crime do pay, and handsomely!
Deprived of an almost certain Oscar as best lead actress due to the early cable release of the movie, Linda Fiorentino, like also John Dhal, would not reach anymore the heights and intensity of this film; after her good performance in Scorsese's After Hour, it could have consolidated her position as a rising cinema star but that it actually proved to be, at only 36 years of age, her swan song, as none of her subsequent roles was able to sustain a career that, after The Last Seduction, seemed very promising.
Well supported by both Bill Pullman as her husband, in more than one way the victim of a lethal wife, and Peter Berg, the clueless, sacrificial and sacrificed lamb, succumbing to the main character's blunt spider strategy, for whom the viewers cannot avoid feeling a resigned compassion, Linda Fiorentino as Bridget Gregory/Wendy Kroy has been able to surge to the position of the darkest lady of all, the most ruthless and happily scrupleless, not only of the classics of the '40s and '50s but also of the new noir revival of the '80s and '90s, pushing well beyond the boundaries already stretched by Kathleen Turner with Body Heat; and it is worth noticing the homages paid by The Last Seduction to both Double Indemnity, mentioned in the script, and Body Heat, with the ending almost identical to Lawrence Kasdan's movie.
The Last Seduction remains, even with the passing of time, an interesting and highly enjoyable movie, with a well structured plot and a script cynic enough that, while orienting the viewers' immediate and more external empathy towards the losers and abused like the husband and the lover, inevitably attracts above all for the deeply rooted and irredeemable protagonist's evil, a sensual devil in stockings that unavoidably mesmerises even when the victim is aware that the only outcome is an eternal perdition.
An unwatchable The Last Seduction II in 1999 luckily didn't have a further episode nor took away anything from John Dahl's best movie, a modern jewel of the noir genre, where, like in Body Heat and unlikely in the apparently more moral, and particularly subject to the Heys Code, classic noirs of the '40s and '50s, evil and crime do pay, and handsomely!