The Right Temptation (2000) User Reviews

Innovative story that unravels at the end

[FlickJunkie-2 · 6/10 · 23 April 2001]

This film has a good story that unravels at the end. Still, for a small independent film, it is intriguing, handling the mystery element well. Derien (Rebecca De Mornay) is a former vice cop now working as a private detective. Anthea (Dana Delaney) hires her to follow her husband Michael (Kiefer Sutherland) to see if he is cheating on her. After a few uneventful days of surveillance, Anthea is still not satisfied, so she adds a new dimension to the assignment. She proposes that Derien try to seduce her husband to test his fidelity. His response is predictable; the rest is not.

The story has some interesting and innovative twists, but becomes incongruous at the end. Without giving away the ending, all I can say is the director needed to do more research on forensics, because a suspect who is arrested for murder in the film would have been cleared 30 minutes after being detained in the real world.

The cast gives a solid performance. Kiefer Sutherland has played so many demented characters in his career that it is something of a shock seeing him in so normal a role. His character is no angel, but at least he isn't a sociopath. Sutherland gives a good performance but makes his character almost too nice. Rebecca De Mornay is back in shape, after a flaccid performance in `A Table for One'. This is actually the best I can remember her in quite some time. She is effective at rendering a character that is tough on the outside and tortured on the inside, with more than one weak spot in her psyche. Dana Delany is devious and duplicitous as the scheming wife.

Overall, this B movie could have been better, but it is far from bad. I rated it a 6/10. If you enjoy mysteries, it might be worth a try.

Decent Noirish Thriller with decent acting.

[med_1978 · 6/10 · 17 May 2009]

I have seen this movie a few times now. If you are looking for decent pulp film noir in the style of the old Hardboiled ones from 40' & 50's there is not too much on offer nowadays. This movie is a decent way to spend 90mins.

The love triangle has been explored many times in many films, so there is nothing fresh in that sense. However the performances are decent from all three leads in Particular the women. Kiefer Sutherland's performance is a little below par but still OK. The sexual tension is quite prevalent and simmers throughout, and other elements are handled OK.

The only problem is that the pace does tend to drag a bit and the movie did seem to feel longer than the 90 mins. However it is still worth the rental price. 6/10

Great to see Kiefer in a romantic role!

[jdnbonneau · 6/10 · 21 August 2000]

I was beginning to wonder about Kiefer Sutherland. Despite 17 years in the business and nearly 50 films, he's had few romantic moments on screen, particularly if you discount the coming-of-age stories he did early in his career. Thus, it was a real treat to see him in a sexy, mature romantic role in "The Right Temptation," and he was certainly up to the task.

Kiefer's talented enough that he can almost always find a way to shine, even when the material is weak, and both he and Dana Delany do so in this movie. Too bad the married couple they play (Michael and Anthea) has zero screen time together. Some well-scripted give-and-take between these two (steamy or not) could have added some interesting twists to the tale. Rebecca DeMornay (Darien), who's ostensibly the center of this piece, panted well enough during those love scenes with Michael, but either didn't have the skill to carry the lead or was hopelessly constrained by the script. Take your pick. In particular, the background story, which was supposed to give us insight into Darien's character and motivation, was simply flat. You kept wishing it would stop intruding at every turn.

The movie is only decent, but see it for the love scenes. It's always exhilarating to watch actors who can effectively convey sexual passion without having to reveal all their assets in the process.

In it's defense...

[technogypsy · 5 August 2002]

I saw this movie, on cable, late at night. That, alone, should tell you something. This movie reads like pulp fiction, true. But, that's really all it is. You can tell by the title that it isn't Casablanca. It isn't Gone With the Wind. It isn't even Shawshank Redemption. It's *the right temptation*!!! The word "temptation" should tell you that it's not an oscar winner, folks. So, understanding that it is really nothing more than a romance novel bred with a crime drama...I enjoyed it (A LOT!). There is so much sexual tension in this movie, and the characters are insanely complex. I enjoyed some of the unique bits in this movie; for example, the starlets aren't 18...they actually have a few lines on their face. The lead character also has a pet pig. More than anything I wanted to stand up for Kiefer Sutherland in this movie. I became a fan of his only because of his acting in this film...it's so moving. During a very emotional part of the movie, he started welling up with tears and was so damn moving that I started CRYING (something that I do NOT do at movies...ever). He did a really good job, as did everyone in this movie. The script was cheesy and very pulpy...but if you like corny lines delivered by good actresses/actors, you'll love this movie.

Watchable but ordinary

[=G= · 5/10 · 3 November 2001]

A female P.I., estimated to be "The Right Temptation", is hired by a women to try to seduce her wealthy husband thereby testing his loyalty...blaa, blaa. So begins another plasticized, predictable, trite formula Hollywood clone noirish mystery with characters too shallow, patter too glib, and story too pat. There's nothing here for an audience to sink their teeth into leaving one to just sit back and zone.

Don't recommend it.

[jackjack-2 · 3/10 · 20 August 2000]

This movie had the potential to be very interesting despite a poor performance by Kieffer Sutherland. The plot leave viewers in suspense until about ten minutes before it ended and then it just fizzled out. Either script writers and directors are ignorant of paraffin tests or they just ignore them. As a result the story gets forced into an unrealistic ending. The ending is hackneyed lacking any originality.

Rebecca De Mornay was a good selection for her role but her acting could have been better.

A Stinker

[jackjack-2 · 3/10 · 22 August 2000]

SPOILER ALERT It is a tortured plot but one does not realize that until the hackneyed ending. Then it becomes obvious how contrived the plot is. The writer decided on an ending and then wrote backward to make it happen. Only problem is that it depends on a series of coincidences which it is highly improbable would ever happen. Don't want to give the plot away. The movie is not helped by poor acting performances, particularly by Kiefer Sutherland. If Rebecca De Mornay had done a better job of acting, it was a perfect role for her.

Sadly, realism is sacrificed in this movie. A man is shot with a pistol and flies out of the window on the tenth floor of a building and lands across a 40 foot wide street. Pistols don't blow men through windows and no one could jump 40 feet backwards.

A man is shot in the face with a shotgun to destroy his identity. Come on, his dental work and finger prints remain so identification should be relatively easy and since the suspect was a former detective, the suspect would have insisted on a rigorous identification.

And the suspect would have insisted on the use of a paraffin test which would have excluded the suspect as the murderer. Why is it that screenwriters and directors are so stupid.

The film leaves ends dangling. Sutherland is identified with a certain classic car. During one scene it is towed off by police. There is no follow up on this and what one never knows the relevance of that particular scene.

About the only thing good that can be said of the movie was that it was not predictable until the near the ending. But once it ended it left a bad taste.

Better without the soundtrack

[mjstock · 5/10 · 16 January 2003]

For what must have been perceived as weaknesses in other

aspects of the film that would have given it the tension and grit that

it needed, the director substituted abrupt "high schoolish" booms

and crashes as well as foul language that just seemed to be out

of place. Otherwise, it was a mostly unremarkable hour-and-a-half's entertainment.

As one other reviewer noted, it is interesting (she called it "heroic"

or something like that) the two female stars managed to bare

absolutely no skin in an "R" rated movie for reasons of "sexual

content." Maybe Ms. Delany and Ms. DeMornay had "no nudity" in

their contracts because of their maturity and the ramifications

associated with the same.

Dark and Appealing

[darwark321 · 9/10 · 22 January 2003]

Nicely photographed, with an interesting and appealing lead character, this film slowly draws you in as you try to follow all the plot twists, deciding who is the bad guy and who is manipulating whom. While borrowing themes from Fatal Attraction, this film owes more of its feel to film noir detective films of the 1950s. The old fashioned names of the characters add to that atmosphere. You'll be hard pressed to follow all the subtleties of The Right Temptation but you will also find that it's worth the effort to pay attention. This is a film worth watching if you're in the mood for a thriller with a few twists to its plot.

Don't be tempted by this title

[Ed-Shullivan · 4/10 · 23 October 2014]

I just love watching thrillers, I don't need to see a lot of murder, blood, or heavy artillery for a good thriller to capture my attention. A good musical score helps and I will say that The Right Temptation's musical score was suspenseful. Unfortunately the suspense was contained with the music score only and not with the screenplay.

I like to watch films that provide some assurance of a relatively good film we are about to see based on the star power of the films main characters. In this case we have three pretty good actors in Kiefer Sutherland who plays Michael-Farrow Smith a high stakes financier who is managing his empire from the top floor of the city's skyscraper where he can oversee the city. His wife, Anthea, is played by Dana Delany more recently associated as the Medical Examiner on TV's current running Body of Proof, so she is familiar to the homicide genre. Last but not least we have an ex-homicide cop, and now a hired adultery chaser for spousal cheating Private Detective Derian McCall, played by the lovely Rebecca De Mornay.

Rebecca, I can only assume that you didn't get a chance to read the script before you signed on the dotted line for this year 2000 project. What were you thinking about the lines of Private Detective Derian McCall? Maybe you thought the world was going to end before this film was completed in the new millennium? I think the one main contributor to the films downfall was writer Larry Brand, whose remainder of body of work does not include anything memorable to date. Mmmm? Okay so the story evolves around Aretha Franklin's song "Whose Zoomin' Who?" The wife, Anthea, hires pretty Private Detective Derian McCall to see if her husband can be seduced. "Duh", the story isn't dumb because of this plot it's dumb because of how stupid the ex-cop now Private Detective Derian McCall can actually be. I don't really want to spell out how stupid Detective McCall is but she would have been safer holding anything but a smoking gun when the real cops come in to take over the crime scene.

I just don't like being fooled for over an hour that we may be in for a good suspense/thriller to be let down so miserably with 20 minutes still to go in the film. Ms. De Mornay, if they had offered me three times the amount of money to make the film, I still would have turned it down if I was expected to play such a dumb detective as you had to in this film.

If there was a film genre coined "LETDOWN" then this film would receive a 9 out of 10 from me. As it is themed as a Drama/Romance/Thriller I can only cough up a 4 out of 10 rating. You are not missing anything if you have not yet seen The Right Temptation.

Don't Be Tempted...

[dromasca · 5/10 · 2 November 2002]

Don't be tempted to see this movie, unless you really have nothing better to do. The series of NYC yuppie mysteries produced much better films than this very boring and un-interesting production. The story of an attractive ex-police woman, now a PI, hired to follow a married man and getting involved with the subject of her inquiry is too expected to catch the attention. The resulting triangle cannot create the much needed sexual tension, and what should have been a series of surprises can be predicted many film minutes in advance. Conventional acting and a foggy ending do not add too much.

5/10 on my personal scale.

Predictable vomit

[acearms · 8 March 2001]

Kiefer Sutherland has sunk to a new low. The plot was not new, very predictable, and the acting bad. The cinematography was jerky (Blair Witch) and there were scenes which didn't connect. This excuse for a movie should be ash canned. I found more suspense in picking my nose.

Only Somewhat "Tempting!"

[Celluloid_Fiend · 5/10 · 16 October 2019]

This film very much plays up that noir-ish quality one would find in some old-school detective novels. It's hard-boiled and ham-fisted all the way. It could even be considered a little bit fun, but it has some problems.

Rebecca De Mornay is easily the best performance of the group here (and the only worthwhile one). She's got the acting chops to play things cold and hard, yet still has the looks to bring in the sexual component needed. While being played by both ends, courtesy of Dana Delany and Kiefer Sutherland, we also get a look into her character's past, that shows her to be just as much damaged goods as anyone else involved in this duplicitous love triangle and murder scheme.

Unfortunately, while De Mornay shines in her role, the same cannot be said for the others. Delany's attempts to play up being a criminally-minded femme are completely undone every time she smirks. You never believe anything she's telling you, which makes you wonder why anyone else would. Meanwhile, Kiefer Sutherland's character is simply bland a boring. There is no real chemistry in their performances, unless it is supplied by De Mornay's character. It is a clear cut case of highly-talented actors, wasting said talent on material that is beneath their skills.

The film is well shot and has some very nice settings, but the last 10-15 minutes of the film ruins much of the tension built-up before, as what happens in them is more hackneyed and telegraphed, than in a Mickey Spillane pulp fiction story. Also, the film is rated "R," but there didn't seem to be much in the movie that seemed to require such a rating. Remove a few f-bombs, and trim the one main love-making scene by a few seconds, and it is PG-13 material all the way.

In the end, it is only Rebecca De Mornay who gives this film any real interest or life, as she pretty much carries anything of value within it single-handed. Everything else is just dime store novel reject material, which explains why it went straight to DVD. Still, it is watchable, even if in a trashy way. This is no great mystery or caper flick, but something to pass the time and quickly be forgotten shortly thereafter.

Flat

[pomeu-63850 · 4/10 · 8 January 2023]

Somehow this is not a made for TV movie. But it sure feels like one. Hard to understand how it attracted such A-List talent when the story is a tepid turd. Maybe Kiefer and Rebecca had the hots for each other and took a paycheck for the privilege of French kissing in front of the cameras. Maybe once they secured the main characters, there were no coins in the coffers to afford little details like a soundtrack, wigs, locations, common sense, the lack of which can be tough on a movie. There are long stretches of movie without any music, which is jarring, making it feel like an unfinished film. Many shots take place in the same ludicrous office location, with the fake NY skyline. Huge waste of time.

Trashy, dark fun!

[dakard1050 · 8/10 · 29 January 2003]

True 50's style, hard-boiled pulp fiction with a up to date spin. I don't agree with the reviewers that mentioned the paraffin test. She opened the breach of a-just- fired-shotgun and handled the spent shell. You would have gunpowder all over you hands from doing so and thus fail a paraffin test. Maybe the movie is just a bit smarter than some of the people that right these reviews! It was a fun cable movie. and didn't need to be much more.