The Right Temptation (2000)

I have seen this movie a few times now. If you are looking for decent pulp film noir in the style of the old Hardboiled ones from 40' & 50's there is not too much on offer nowadays. This movie is a decent way to spend 90mins.The love triangle has been explored many times in many films, so there is nothing fresh in that sense. However the performances are decent from all three leads in Particular the women. Kiefer Sutherland's performance is a little below par but still OK. The sexual tension is quite prevalent and simmers throughout, and other elements are handled OK.The only problem is that the pace does tend to drag a bit and the movie did seem to feel longer than the 90 mins. However it is still worth the rental price. 6/10

Nicely photographed, with an interesting and appealing lead character, this film slowly draws you in as you try to follow all the plot twists, deciding who is the bad guy and who is manipulating whom. While borrowing themes from Fatal Attraction, this film owes more of its feel to film noir detective films of the 1950s. The old fashioned names of the characters add to that atmosphere. You'll be hard pressed to follow all the subtleties of The Right Temptation but you will also find that it's worth the effort to pay attention. This is a film worth watching if you're in the mood for a thriller with a few twists to its plot.

For what must have been perceived as weaknesses in otheraspects of the film that would have given it the tension and grit thatit needed, the director substituted abrupt "high schoolish" boomsand crashes as well as foul language that just seemed to be outof place. Otherwise, it was a mostly unremarkable hour-and-a-half's entertainment.As one other reviewer noted, it is interesting (she called it "heroic"or something like that) the two female stars managed to bareabsolutely no skin in an "R" rated movie for reasons of "sexualcontent." Maybe Ms. Delany and Ms. DeMornay had "no nudity" intheir contracts because of their maturity and the ramificationsassociated with the same.

This film has a good story that unravels at the end. Still, for a small independent film, it is intriguing, handling the mystery element well. Derien (Rebecca De Mornay) is a former vice cop now working as a private detective. Anthea (Dana Delaney) hires her to follow her husband Michael (Kiefer Sutherland) to see if he is cheating on her. After a few uneventful days of surveillance, Anthea is still not satisfied, so she adds a new dimension to the assignment. She proposes that Derien try to seduce her husband to test his fidelity. His response is predictable; the rest is not.The story has some interesting and innovative twists, but becomes incongruous at the end. Without giving away the ending, all I can say is the director needed to do more research on forensics, because a suspect who is arrested for murder in the film would have been cleared 30 minutes after being detained in the real world.The cast gives a solid performance. Kiefer Sutherland has played so many demented characters in his career that it is something of a shock seeing him in so normal a role. His character is no angel, but at least he isn't a sociopath. Sutherland gives a good performance but makes his character almost too nice. Rebecca De Mornay is back in shape, after a flaccid performance in `A Table for One'. This is actually the best I can remember her in quite some time. She is effective at rendering a character that is tough on the outside and tortured on the inside, with more than one weak spot in her psyche. Dana Delany is devious and duplicitous as the scheming wife.Overall, this B movie could have been better, but it is far from bad. I rated it a 6/10. If you enjoy mysteries, it might be worth a try.