Mike's Murder (1984)

...anything but - Smart industry personnel be they script, directors, producers, actor/actresses, set-property, agents, scribes - know the reality of the myth of ease per Los Angeles. The weather is the primer for the pump that has made the myth fact. LA is a very dangerous place for that very reason and this film does a great service in depicting what the naive step into to their own peril in assuming anything but that.Paul Winfield sympathy is so evident here for Debra Winger. The only real mystery is why she would be pulled to Mike to begin with - our boy Mike is a real fool who hangs with others because of the choices he's made already - got make some more scratch and I don't want to work hard for it.Great movie as noted the draw isn't so much 'Who dun it' as 'Don't be a fool, you've no idea who you are messing with!'

Spoilers, if anyone cares!I really gave this movie a try. I heard only bad things about it and thought I'd give it a look to see for myself if it's that bad. Well, the critics were right. MIKE'S MURDER is dull. No, it's not just dull, it's beyond dull! Not since RAISE THE TITANIC have I seen such a boring movie (ironically, both films' scores were made by the great John Barry, who should have chosen his projects a little bit better!). I can't believe the script was greenlighted. There's nothing in it. Zip. Nada. Nothing! The first half of the movie, we basically see Debra Winger, single woman: she plays tennis; has sex with tennis instructor; drives around; listens to her answering machine; works; drives around some more. Then she hears that the tennis instruction called Mike was killed. She reluctantly tries to know why he was killed. So we see her driving around L.A. for what seems to be an endless amount of time. Eventually she goes to a mansion where Mike used to live. The owner of the mansion is played by Paul Winfield. She learns a few things about Mike. Then one night, after going to a performance art thingy, she returns home and the story suddenly becomes a claustrophobic hostage-like situation, with Mike's psychotic friend forces his way into her house because the killers who killed Mike are after him after he and Mike stole some drugs during an exchange. The friend eventually gets killed from inside Winger's house. End of story. That's it. WTF?!?!The people who wrote the script and grennlighted this project must have been high on drugs or something because there's nothing worthwhile in the entire film. Except for Paul Winfield, the acting from everyone else is terrible, including Winger, who seems to be completely bored out of her mind. The dialogue is painful to listen to. And the story is slooooow. Scenes of Debra Winger alone, talking on the phone for almost 5 minutes, with the camera on her face for almost that entire 5 minutes, do not make for compelling viewing. Things aren't made any better by the script's humongous improbabilities, like Winger being affected by his death. She didn't seem to care about him one bit. Or Winger going to see the apartment where Mike was killed. Sure. Or the whole videotaped moment Winger was shown, for no apparent reasons, by that male stripper at Winfield's house. Who was behind the video camera when the argument took place? Why did the person behind the camera kept on filming the argument or why didn't anyone around, like Winfield, ask the person to stop recording the moment? Or the flimsy plot point of when Mike's psychotic friend decides to go to Winger's place. Moments like this made my eyes roll. The film tried to be edgy and current but only ends up looking poky and trivial. For instance, the whole film is populated by characters who are obviously gay or bisexual but the producers were so afraid to deal with the subject that every time they showed some homoeroticism, they always showed some girls in bikinis or something else to detract the underlying subtext. If you're going to make a movie about a hustler, who does everything, including selling his body, don't fidget about it. But the worst thing about this ill-conceived project is Mike himself: the character is ugly and totally unappealing. It's impossible to care for the loser. And the actor who played him was terrible AND unappealing. If you're going to build a film around the unfortunate murder of a tragic character, make him interesting or worthwhile. In this case, when Mike is murdered, no one really cares!

This movie is compelling because the character of Betty is so innocent about what is going on in this murky tennis coach. It makes it easy to see how a normal person could find themselves in way over their heads without knowing it. The kitchen scene with the pal of Mike's who manages to get away from the bad guys is gut wrenching. Debra Winger has never gotten the breaks that she richly is due. I feel that it is compelling that the late Bette Davis stated that of the new actresses that Ms Winger was the most like her and I don't think that she was merely referring to their bad press.

There's a lot of good things to say about this obscure mystery from the 80s. The best thing is Debra Winger, who never looked better. She is beautiful and sexy, earthy and smoldering, yet she possesses an approachable, naive quality.The story is good, with a different kind of look at the drug underworld in Los Angeles. This is not about cops, gangsters and car chases. It's about an innocent woman who accidentally becomes involved in a drug-related murder. It's really all about Winger's character, although Paul Winfield stands out in a small role as a gay music producer.The mood is low-key and dreamlike with a subtle erotic undertone. It also has a nice score that stays with you. Give it a chance.