Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

Eyes of Laura Mars is a mystery thriller, that I found rather predictable and unthrilling.While Laura was a fairly strong lead character, the others were quite unlikable. The whole idea of being able to see through the killer's eyes, while not explained at all in the film, is merely to set up the moment where she sees herself through the killer's eyes when she is with the one she loves. I already figured that was going to be the case, so when Tommy L Jones's character became close with her it was obvious he would be the killer, thus lacking any thrills. Though he did turn out to have multiple personalities, making it more reasonable. Outside of the main plot, there is nothing of any value and some of it a bit annoying.

I watch this movie at least once a year and I know, by industry, standards it is a terrible movie, but I like it. It has disco music, it has Faye Dunaway, it has models, and it has (some) stylish clothing. I once did an Eyes of Laura Mars photo shoot, so having said that, stylistically this is a little iconic thriller that not many people know about. It's cheesy, it's campy, but it looks and feels great. Perfect Halloween movie to watch for any person who works in the 'fashion' industry.Also, if anyone can find the movie poster, please let me know. I love it.

I think Faye Dunaway is the best part of the movie. This is the second movie I see her in and she does a good job, but most of her character is about being afraid and have "visions".I do like the premise of the plot, it sounds sort of supernatural in an old fashioned way combined with crime thriller. However, the way it works on screen is not too interesting. We have Faye Dunaway being a controversial photographer, taking pictures of models we don't really get to know. The models are the targets for the murderer here, and we don't really care too much about the girls because we don't get to know them before they're disposed of like eggshells.Tommy Lee Jones is good, not great (he's young in this one, and we know he's become better), and he's one of the few people I've seen who looks somewhat good with a unibrow.I have really liked Raul Julia in his later role as Gomez in The Addams Family, but in this one he's stiff as a stick. I don't think he knows how he wants to act in this one, which is unfortunate.Of course this is a very typical crime romance, so we do get a romance plot, which does come out of nowhere, after the two lovers have met maybe four or five times, and nothing builds up to them suddenly being consumed by sudden lust and love. It's getting boring to watch these kind of plots.There is a "twist" here of course, when it comes to guessing who's the murderer. The "twist" is pretty much impossible to guess because the movie doesn't put out clues, it just keeps you guessing wildly until you only have one or two left to think about. And the nature of the "twist" is lazy, it throws in some little understood mental illness in there to make it more nuts but also more compassionate, but it has literally no build-up until you get a symbolic (and vaguely verbal) answer of what's going in inside the killer's head. I'll throw in, though, the shot "explaining" what's going on with the killer and has all along is a really cool one, when it stands alone.It's never explained what really happens to Laura Mars, with her visions and why. I don't think we necessarily need to get an explanation, but it's not really played with enough or talked about, it just happens that she sees from the killer's point of view. She explains it once to Tommy Lee Jones' character, but he doesn't really question it or talk about the subject at all (they just start goofing around with a camera that she used to illustrate her visions). It could at least be a little bit explained or played more with.This movie has many good things, but it doesn't explore enough. It has lots of pretty women that has basically no character and more used for eye-candy, the script itself is nothing really spectacular, some acting is off, some is pretty good, the suspense is there, but never really gets high enough.

This movie was made in the late 1970's and still is good. It also captures a type of celebrity that today's celebrities don't have. It was when photography was real and no photo-shop around, yeah there were airbrushes, but talent and marketing made a celebrity, not just marketing. It is one of Tommy Lee Jones' first major roles and he was great. It was one of Faye Dunaway's last great roles. The song by Barbara Streisand still is haunting and great today. One reason it wasn't as well received was due to the producer being Jon Peters who was back then known more for being Barbara's Boyfriend. But the script was written by John Carpenter.Among the film's other assets are all the time-capsule location shots in Manhattan, the now-quaint disco soundtrack, the Helmut Newton-style "photo session scenes", and a strong supporting cast which includes Tommy Lee Jones as a homicide detective who becomes romantically involved with the titular Miss Mars. The plot at times stretches believability to ludicrous heights, such as when Dunaway, "seeing" a murder in progress, drives a car through the streets of Manhattan, even though she's effectively blind, screaming "Donald!" before finally crashing through a show window (How did she manage all those turns? From memory?) But unintentional camp does not hurt "the Eyes of Laura Mars" one bit in fact, it just makes it all the more delicious!Overall rating: 8 out of 10.