Chandler’s Trailers: “Last Embrace” (1979)

Is Roy Scheider attempting to explain to Mandy Patinkin the theory of gravitational planes? It would make as much sense as anything else in Jonathan Demme’s jaw dropping exercise in hyperactive confusion, “Last Embrace”

     Such is the continuous flow of discontented comment expressed about what constitutes a “bad” film (nobly assisted by a film industry which strains to give a new voice to every emergent theory on a weekly basis) that when a movie of such undeniable awfulness alights on a theater screen, the eager (though tired) critical cutlery will emerge to begin the latest seminar of dissection or, in extreme cases, prior commentary might be brought to its knees with the emergence of an altogether unprecedented level of offense.  When it is uncertain as to whether or not a thriller is intended as a parody, its a fairly good indication things aren’t working out as planned. Jonathan Demme’s “Last Embrace” is a spy movie by made film makers with the delicate touch of an arcade claw machine; the acting is atrocious, the writing sub-literate and the entire production is enveloped in a hazy murk of incomprehensibility that give new meaning to the phrase “you’ve got to be kidding”.

 

To read the complete review, click the following link to:  https://chandlerswainreviews.wordpress.com/chandlers-trailers-short-bits-for-emerging-cinephiles-and-a-better-america/