Femme Fatale

I really don’t know what to think about this. De Palma is still a playful director, but this time he attempted a screenplay, and I wonder if he wasn’t permanently high when he wrote it. The plot is very convoluted, but the whole film is nothing compared to the final ten minutes, when everything twists and turns while connecting in a bizarre plot twist. I feel that De Palma just took the piss out of the viewers. We can only shake our heads at the result and admit that such a farce is definitely worth watching. And in case you don’t agree with me, there’s also Rebecca and her legs longer than the week before payday and the director doesn’t spare her boobs. (22.06.2003)

I came, I lied down, I put on Femme Fatale, I didn’t understand it, and yet I enjoyed every minute, drooling at Rebecca Romijn, and went to bed. De Palma is quite a conman and I’m not sure whether all those homages to cinema and narrative twists and turns made sense this time, but those games are fun, if nothing else. 75% (09.04.2020)

Forget about the villains from Scarface, Carlito's Way, or The Untouchables, who were gangsters, thieves, and smugglers with grace, malice, or just sheer cunning. Here, De Palma presents all the bad guys as swearing puppets who have been waiting in prison for years to finally meet their humiliating (non)finale. And if you used to root for Carlito or Eliot Ness, well, that's the end of that too. The main heroes have shrunk into a sly, pseudo-sophisticated beauty and a photographer who runs around from nowhere to nowhere and lets himself be manipulated without much trouble. So goodbye, classic film noir or crime story, and welcome a deeply boring game for the viewer, which shows that all the clues you tried to follow actually led to no interesting point; it's just the script desperately giving in at its very end. (26.11.2008)

An unexpectedly great film. After a flawless 20-minute opening, which consists of some of the best filmed heist action I've ever seen (backed by a sensational Ravel-inspired Bolerish score), comes a completely unpredictable story that, for me at least, lacks nothing. It spills freely like water from an overflowing bathtub (or aquarium), keeps the viewer's attention permanently, surprises and unnerves him at the end and calms him down again. And to top it all off, we get to see everything we love about Mr. De Palma. Except for the shootout on the stairs. I liked it very much. (23.10.2012)

A very strange, inconsistent and convoluted film benefiting mainly from the director's skill and its two stars. After the first (quite good) fifteen minutes, you think it will be a standard mediocre thriller, but in the end, it's all different. It only depends on whether you are willing to accept such a development of the story or not. If yes, it will definitely be a very enjoyable movie experience. If not, you will end up somewhat unsatisfied. (19.07.2004)