Blink (1994)

Michael Apted's direction sometimes gets in the way of true suspense, the middle of the movie seeming to slow down, and the killings take second place to the love affair. A red herring is thrown in and you might swallow it, but the identity of the killer once revealed may come as a surprise. A brilliant performance from Madeline Stowe elevates "Blink" in an otherwise slow moving, at times muddled, movie. It's true that the story may stretch your willingness to believe at times (though it seems that the "delayed vision" phenomena is accurate), what makes this a really good movie is the quality of the acting. As for the plot, its a thrilling and interesting crime as it begins to unfold, adding touches of fear with scenes of the killer... seen mostly through Stowe's blurry eyes. The best thing about this movie is Madeleine Stowe playing the blind woman, Emma Brody, who is given a transplant operation to help her see again. While her sight is returning she witnesses a murder committed by a brutal serial killer and becomes his next target. Stowe plays her character really well, making the blind scenes look genuine and making you care about her future. Aidan Quinn was OK in his role as Detective John Hallstrom, the police detective investigating the serial killer case who (surprise, surprise) falls for Emma Brody. Madeleine Stowe is sexy and does a good job in a demanding role, probably the most demanding of her modest career. This is a top notch thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end, and the soundtrack is not too bad. Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

Emma Brody (Madeleine Stowe) is a blind violinist in a rock band. Police detective John Hallstrom (Aidan Quinn) makes a fool of himself dancing in front of her. She gets an operation partly repairing her vision. However her sight is distorted and delayed. Dr. Pierce takes a liking to her. Late one night, she is awaken by somebody at the stairs. However her vision is delayed and the next morning, she thinks the criminal was in her room. She goes to the police but Hallstrom and the boys laugh her off. Then they find her dead neighbor.Madeleine Stowe is amazing and her character is compelling. She's brash and cool. The premise is interesting. Director Michael Apted gives a good sense of her visual confusion. However the killer murder mystery doesn't have a good payoff. This could have been much better.

Emma is a girl in her 20s who has been blind for 20 years.A new type of eye operation partially restores her sight, but she is having problems: sometimes she doesn't "remember" what she's seen until later.One night she is awakened by a commotion upstairs. Peering out of her door, she sees a shadowy figure descending the stairs.Convinced that her neighbour has been murdered, she approaches the police, only to find that she is unsure if it was just her new eyes playing tricks on her....It's not a surprise that this didn't make much of an impact when released. These sort of thrillers were released every other month in the nineties, bu the inclusion of eye surgery is surely a novelty.It is, but thats where all the novel ideas end.We have Aiden Quinn, the lead detective, and guess who he ends up with?Stowe has a guide dog, guess what happens to it? And so on and so on.There is a little bit of a twist come the end, but it doesn't really matter, all the blanks are filled in and it doesn't really bother the grey matter.Stowe is good in her role, and it has to be her best performance, its a shame she never really picked up better scripts, could she really has screen presence.See it if you like thrillers, you don't expect to be surprised too much...

The main reason I saw this film was not because I thought the plot sounded interesting, or even because of the fact that it stars the beautiful Madeleine Stowe; the reason I saw it is purely down to the fact that I remembered seeing posters for it in the video store when I was a kid. With such a nonchalant viewing reason behind me, it probably wont come as a surprise that I wasn't expecting a lot from this film; and it's a good job as Blink is a highly disappointing thriller with numerous problems and very little to recommend it for. The plot is not particularly original, and focuses on the idea of a blind woman in peril. There is a slight twist on this theme; as the woman in this film is not quite blind; in fact, she is the benefactor of a breakthrough 'eye transplant', which re-enables her sight after over twenty years of being blind. A side effect of this treatment is the fact that she sees some things 'by memory', and this is a problem when she apparently witnesses a murder as she's not sure if it's real or just flashback...The film would be described a 'psychological thriller', and the reason why these films are often hit and miss is the main problem with this one. A film like this really needs a central character that is easy to get into; and while I believe that Madeleine Stowe is a great actress, she's not given the room to do much with this role. The plotting is not good at all, and is often all over the place; and too much of the film focuses on the tentative (and boring) relationship between the central character and a policeman on the case. This relationship feels extremely phoney, and since it makes up a large proportion of the running time of the film; it becomes a pretty big problem. There are a few decent scenes; Stowe is very good despite the poor material, though I would have preferred a lot more suspense, given that this is really supposed to be a thriller. The ending is pulled off fairly nicely, though its impact is lessened by the tepid film that preceded it. For a far better take on a similar theme, see the fantastic 'Wait Until Dark', and skip this.