Otto Preminger's Whirlpool made its first mistake by centering on a truly preposterous idea: a villain who hypnotizes women into committing crimes for him. Maybe in the realm of horror such a story would work, but certainly not in the hard-boiled arena of film noir. Whirlpool's second mistake was that it unsuccessfully attempted to blend melodrama into a crime thriller. So not only does the audience have to deal with an unbelievable story, it has to contend with sub-par storytelling. I expected more from Preminger, honestly. But Whirlpool is a disappointment through and through. The one stand-out part of this film is José Ferrer as the hypnotist David Korvo. He is a delightfully smug bastard who knows that he's smarter than everyone else around him. He is a plotter, a schemer, a manipulator who knows how to cover all his bases. And that's another reason why Whirlpool fails: in the last scene Korvo stupidly confronts the heroes with a gun. For such a genius mastermind, this scene completely betrays his character and feels insulting towards the audience. This film isn't just a misfire. It's a complete disaster.
5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment