True Crime (1996)

Alicia Silverstone stars in True Crime in which she plays a Catholic school girl about to graduate who has an intense interest in criminology. In a more innocent time she would have been cast as Nancy Drew.One thing in those Nancy Drew novels and also with the Hardy Boys the juvenile sleuths never went after criminals whose mental states were in question. If you can recall the kids going after a sex criminal so be it, I sure can't. Takes a whole different kind of perspective in dealing with that. A theme that should have been more clearly developed but wasn't in the film.During the course of the investigation she starts looking at a stranger hanging around where her school girl friends go. It turns out to be Kevin Dillon who is close to graduating the police academy. The two turn into an R rated Nancy Drew and Ted Nickerson. But it certainly doesn't end that way.I think the roles were superficially drawn here and the players not given direction enough so they were left to their own devices. This had the potential to be better than it is.

Alicia Silverstone (pre-"Clueless") plays a modern-day crime-obsessed teenager attempting to solve the brutal slaying of a local girl. Pat Verducci wrote and directed this B-flick, which isn't especially well-made but is however surprisingly serious-minded in regards to its leading character. Silverstone is appealing and successful in carving out an interesting young woman here, despite the picture's kitschy undermining. The supporting cast (including Kevin Dillon and Michael Bowen) isn't bad, though the violence in the last act goes overboard. Not a cheesy camp-fest, but nothing exceptionally memorable either. *1/2 from ****

This movie was a mystery movie and I love to solve things before the movie solves things, like cases, murder, etc. Alicia Silverstone has acted good especially when she was crying. And Kevin Dillon (also the brother of Matt Dillon) has been really good. In the movie, I realized that something was familiar with Kevin. And so I went on the net and saw the name of his brother. When the movie started, I knew Tony (Kevin Dillon) was the murderer all along. It was really obvious because of the way he has been acting around Mary (Alicia Silverstone). He also has been spying on Mary and following her. This movie is quite good, though it was a really easy case to solve. I like this kind of mystery movie.

Alicia Silverstone, yes, she of the pouty, sensuous mouth and the soft chubby thighs, stars here as nerdy cum sexy Mary Giordano, a catholic school girl, daughter of a cop killed in the line of duty. She's attired in a plaid-skirt uniform to tease us with those pretty thighs. She wears glasses and makes all sorts of unsex, nosex, 'I'm a nerd girl' expressions with her pouty mouth-to no avail of course: I can't take my eyes off of her.There's been a murder of a classmate. She's 'investigating.' The head cop, who has helped her with some class projects, is black and gruff (women's sexual fantasy number one--totally under-played of course). He's a father figure. She decides to 'become' the dead girl and goes swimming as the dead girl did. Immediately Kevin Dillon appears sweet talking some 14-year-olds. He's all in black and looking menacingly sexy. The girls giggle. She follows him to his home, and from across the street in some bushes takes pictures of him as he poses behind a conveniently opened window. He even takes out a gun and looks sinister.Okay, obviously we have woman's fantasy number two rolling. Dillon seems 'questionable,' heightening woman's fantasy number two, but actually kicking in The Fundamental Woman's Ambivalence Sexual Fantasy, namely, is the sexy guy a good guy or a bad guy? We get our first clue when they go into the convenience store to quiz the clerk. Dillon flashes his junior cop badge and demands answers. Alicia watches. The clerk says he's answered these questions before and turns up the volume on the acid rock, in reply to which, Dillon sweeps the radio onto the floor and cracks the guy across the face and pins his arm behind his back and applies a little pressure. Outside, Alicia says 'I can't believe what you just did!'Okay, now we've got the sexual tension full force. On the one hand we have the sexy dude/star: I mean, kiss her! is what the audience wants; but on the other hand, he looks like a cold-blooded, mass rapist/murderer, so maybe don't. It's the usual dilemma with men: the only interesting ones are the ones you can't be sure of.They return to his pad and he's having a beer, want one? Okay, this is a good question, allowing Alicia to show how grown up she really is. She says yes and they sit on his bed and tip back their long-necked brewskis. Now the nerdy expressions are gone, and the Alicia of the Aerosmith video comes to life. She laments that she is not pretty (right! sure!). They go outside and he begins to kiss her in earnest. He presses her up against the car (and yes, he removes her glasses) and she presses back big time and he guides her into the car still kissing her and (although the camera stays above the neck) makes with some obvious groping. Oh boy, ...and Doris Day this is not! He's not only kissing her, but he's feeling her up, and now he has her in the back seat of the car, laid out, and she is just giving in to it, and...fade to black.Well, it's ninety-nine percent clear that they did the wild thing, and just where does that leave us vis-a-vis his possible villainous nature? It used to be the rule in Hollywood that the girl may be tempted, and she may even kiss and like the kiss a little, but she would never, ever, ever, lie down with a mass murderer. I mean, that's how we know the guy is a mass murderer. But this is the nineties and all bets are off. You can get carried away, if the guy is persuasive enough, sexy enough and knows how to do the deed. It could happen to anybody, even Doris Day were she nineteen today! We have reality today.Now they have a suspect, a carnival Ferris wheel man. Yes, my sweet lord, they actually do a carnival in this one, and drag out some carny types, including women's sexual fantasy number three, the carny guy himself, who has a deformed right hand and a thick mustache and a leer to match, but biceps and an animal nature with which he favors Alicia as he tucks her into the Ferris wheel car. Later Alicia and Dillon follow the carny to a recycling plant and watch through a curb-side window as the one-handed carny puts some serious sex moves on a frail blonde in a white slip, circling her neck with his good, but formed-into-a-claw, left hand.Finally we have the finale at a recycling plant. The centerpiece is a vat of swirling broken glass being churned by a giant meat grinder! Of course they climb up, up, up until they are above the swirling churning grinder of glass and Dillon is moving in on her. Her face is a mass of scream/cry/wet with tears. But she hits him with a plank of wood, knocking him out over the grinder. He grabs hold of a gunny sack rope and swings above the broken glass in the grinder, holding on for dear life. Now we have the moment of moral truth. He has one toe on the platform. The gunny sack rips a little more. Can she give him the final shove? He certainly deserves it. But no, her heart is too big. She reaches out for him her slender hand. He says, 'I was inside you...'Oops. Yes, he did say that, and yes, that fact has been in the audience's mind for an hour, and yes, it was her virginity, and yes, the stupid b*****d is stupidly rubbing it in, and so...Well, I can't reveal the ending, alas.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)