One Night Stand (1997)

Los Angeles commercial director Wesley Snipes goes to New York to visit dying childhood friend Robert Downey, Jr. (who is in the latter stages of AIDS) and has a quick affair with yuppie Nastassja Kinski. Their secret seems safe until one year later Snipes returns to New York with his erotic, but oft-times mean-spirited wife (Ming Na-Wen) and they meet Kinski by chance when they find out that she is actually married to Downey Jr.'s older brother (a cold and seemingly unfeeling Kyle MacLachlan, even equipped with latex gloves because of his fear of catching AIDS). Would-be potboiler is actually pretty tame in the end with Snipes and Na-Wen providing a few light sparks with a couple of emotional sparring matches, but probably the greatest conflict actually occurs between Snipes and his boss (Thomas Haden Church who in the end is really only a window-dressing character here). Kinski and MacLachlan are more quiet and supposedly deep-thinking than anything else and in the end it is Downey, Jr. who is the revelation being almost unrecognizable as a young man whose body and mind are beginning to decay from his horrid illness. However, it is almost like he is in the wrong film as his part just basically is used as a bridge on more than one occasion between Snipes and Kinski. Writer/director Mike Figgis (who was fresh off "Leaving Las Vegas" in 1995) tends to use coincidence, chance, and splintered relationships between major roles to get his points across. The film stutters and drags to its finale, finally resolving with a would-be jaw-dropping conclusion which in actuality most could probably see a mile away. Just lacks the fire and intensity needed to be much more than a curiosity and little else. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

The movie didn't appeal to my wont for pure "feel-good" escapism - but then again neither did Leaving Las Vegas - and the movie follows a similar vein in exposing the uncomfortable nature of unadorned life littered with human flaws and gifts. What gave me a new perspective on the movie was the commentary that very closely correlated with the colour "unblindness" rampant in the society of the commentator. As a Canadian living in rainbow land - Vancouver - seeing mixed racial or ethnic pairings was no remarkable thing - and it didn't hit me what a large role that feature in the movie plays to American audiences. Further judgement was passed on moral issues surrounding homosexual activity and the resulting disease of AIDS. The real moral faux pas or transgression was infidelity - not homosexuality or pairing with someone who complements your phenotype - it is the breaking of trust. If the viewer is more moved by the "shocking" mixed racial and homo gendered sex than the break in trust - then it says something uncomfortable about our shaded view of the world. Divine cast.

One would think with this interesting cast, this flick would have been at the very least, "rent worthy". Was very disappointed in the lack of depth to the characters and relationships. Not one grabbed me enough to care what happened to any of them---the relationships and characters themselves.The opening 5 minutes was the best of the film and then it just dragged on from that point forward. There was no credible chemistry between any of the characters, which was a shame. The only reason to rent this film is to see Ming Na's breasts, if that's what you fancy; otherwise, I wouldn't even bother. (And I love Robert Downey Jr. as an actor; but this was definitely not one of his best roles.)

At first I had a knee jerk reaction to the fact that infidelity played a role in the rearrangement of people's lives. However, what got me off my high horse was Robert Downey Jr's character Charlie. Charlie was the equalizer in this film which brought everything and everyone together. The message became crystal clear as Charlie candle slowly burned out, but what better way could a man ask to leave this world. Charlie truly left us all with something to live on for, OUR HAPPINESS.... 9 out of 10