Shattered (1991)

Judith Merrick (Greta Scacchi) survives a car crash but her husband Dan Merrick (Tom Berenger) suffered facial trauma and amnesia. They try to go on but he can't remember their lives together from before. He finds evidence of her cheating on him with Jack Stanton which was gathered by private investigator Gus Klein (Bob Hoskins). Gus checks the accident and finds discrepancies. Dan's business partner Jeb Scott (Corbin Bernsen) is not happy with his work. Jenny (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer) is his wife. Suspicion rises that Judith had tried to kill Dan.It's an intriguing mystery although I don't like the constant micro-flashbacks. This reminds me of an old Hitchcock mystery with less style. Some of the shooting style is fairly old school and they use too much fog. The deliberate style is too noticeable. I stayed with the story with all the twists and then there is the one gigantic twist ending. It's too unlikely to work. The way to make the story work better is for Dan to have some facial disfigurements. It's just so unreal that it makes the movie feels like it's cheating.

Rating is always been debatable starting from censor certificate to IMDb. In my opinion this title in review is highly under-rated. This is completely an edge of seat suspense thriller. Story is full of twists and very entertaining. I am in no position to discuss direction as director is considered authority in his field.Many people will criticize that story in unrealistic and this thing is not possible in real world then I say to them if you want reality look around you. If you want some thing beyond reality then go to cinema.Few words on film, Its highly entertaining. Every scene and every dialogue matters. It will keep you guessing and its my challenge that how intelligent you are or you have read and seen many mystery thriller, still you won't be able to guess the end correctly. If you don't believe me, then try it yourself. You will not be disappointed.I've given it 8 because of God father otherwise only for mystery genre this movie deserves 9.5

There was a time when a single hook or twist would justify the creation of a movie - that time was called the 1980s and early 90s.Aaaahhhh, the 80s, when action movies knew they were pointless, TV was a minor distraction and Tom Berenger was one of the most reliable guys going around.Shattered starts off with a car flying off a cliff, the occupants of the wreck are taken to hospital, where the wife is told that her husband's status is touch and go, and when I say touch and go she is basically told in very blunt terms that he is going to die, (some bedside manner doc!) Anyway of course the hubby lives, although he is messed up and needs extensive surgery to reconstruct his facial features - obviously no airbags in the car. Tom is the hubby Dan, and Greta Scacchi plays his wife Judith who is with him through every step of his rehab.One of those steps is to be in one of the cheesiest sex scenes in film history, replete with actual footage of waves crashing in between their lurve.So Dan gets out of hospital, a bit proppy and with a case of amnesia, and finds out that the bastard is rich, with a big ass house and a partnership in a large and successful company.Over the coming weeks Dan's interactions with his wife and close friends (and business partners) Jeb, (Corbin Bernsen) and his wife Jenny bring different versions and viewpoints regarding many aspects of Dan's life up to and including the night of the accident. These include the allegations that Judith was having an affair with a guy named Jack Stanton, and that she and Dan were headed for divorce.So Dan goes through Judith's diary to find out what's going on and is lead to a local pet store, where Bob Hoskins runs the show as a part-time private investigator.The ensuing investigations lead Dan to believe that someone tried to kill him for his cash, and the remainder of the movie takes him through all the twists, turns and revelations necessary in an 80s thriller.I can't explain much more without giving stuff away, suffice to say you'll never see the end coming… unless you do.Dan has itty-bitty partial flashbacks that are sometimes random and sometimes triggered by what he sees and hears. Shattered is a bit overblown, think Basic Instinct style where everyone takes everything way too seriously and everyone is beautiful except for sidekicks and quirky characters where it is necessary that they be ugly. It's almost hyper-real at times.One point though, twenty odd years ago Greta Schacci had a rig that is almost not believable, notice I didn't say unbelievable, although it is that too.Final Rating 6 / 10. It's OK I guess, but this is a paint by numbers thriller without any notable scenes.If you liked this (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com

The feel of this film rings of a late 1970's early 1980's action-drama TV show, like "Hart to Hart", "Charlie's Angels", or even "Dallas", particularly because of the location shots and the music. The scenes alternate between million-dollar mansions, ritzy hotels, billion-dollar corporations, and rural locales. And the lush strings always emerge when the characters are driving through some mountainous areas. I kept thinking that Jaclyn Smith would turn up at any moment. The opening premise is quite a stretch: Tom Berenger as Dan Merrick survives after having plunged about 6000 feet off the road in his car. It's a miracle that his legs didn't end up in the glove compartment. Despite being more or less still intact, Merrick's face has been crushed into hamburger, and he can't remember who he is or what happened to him after he awakens from a coma. His wife Judith (Greta Scacchi) is only a little scratched up after the ordeal. She nurses him back to health and tries to help put the puzzle pieces back into his "shattered" memory.He finds out he's a rich commercial real estate developer with a house with its own zip code. His office at the TransAmerica building in San Francisco is bigger than the average person's apartment. And he has a beautiful secretary who must have just finished a stint as a cover model for Vogue. And his colleague is the kind of guy who uses the old "two shooter" gesture while saying "We'll do lunch." That would be a nightmare!But other pieces do not come together so easily, like why, before the accident, did he hire a private investigator (Bob Hoskins) who fronts as a pet store owner? And why did this guy's invoice end up at the development company? At one point, he thought he had bought $7000 worth of pets! (With that kind of money he could have gotten the equivalent of Magnum PI.)The film becomes a kind of noir mystery in which Merrick tries to put the pieces of his life back into perspective all the while trying to figure who he can trust. Although some of the writing and circumstances were a little hard to swallow, the movie sort of gets better as it goes along. And a great performance by Berenger holds the story together more or less. At every moment, despite its short-comings, you want to find out what happens next. And a dynamite ending that is worth the wait and the price of admission, $5 for the DVD at Fry's.