Suture (1993)

The debut feature of US filmmaker-duo Scott McGehee and David Siegel is a pristine-looking psychological forensics of an individual's confused identity, shot in widescreen black-and-white cinematography, SUTURE has its unmissable neo-noir panache awash but also undeniably undercut by its slight story-telling stratagem. McGehee-Siegel's conceit is surprising and madcap, the purportedly identical half-brothers Vincent Towers (a dour-looking Harris) and Clay Arling (Haysbert) are diametrically different in their appearances (the racial distinction strikes as a self-aware but caustic jape), which at once impels viewers to suspend our disbelief and blatantly dissociates its scenario from any pretension of realism, as if to declare in its opening: don't trust what you've seen. Truly, what we see is a rather simple identity-swapping scheme goes amiss, after murdering his minted father, Vincent plots to liquidate Clay, his doppelganger half-brother, whose existence is conveniently sealed from the outside, thus Clay would be the whipping boy passing off as Vincent, guilty and perished, then the real Vincent can return as Clay to claim his munificent inheritance. The plan is seamless a priori, but miraculously Clay survives the car comb and ends up with a disfigured visage and severe amnesia. Treated by Dr. Renee Descartes (Harris) to reconstruct his face, now believing he is Vincent, Clay's memory has to take a longer divagation to recover his true identity under the psychoanalysis of Dr. Max Shinoda (Shimono), who is welded together with the image of Rorschach test and passes wisdom in shrink's parlance by rote, and it goes without saying, the real Vincent will not have Clay usurping his heirdom for too long, danger and myth (for instance, what is the ulterior motive of Vincent's recently widowed mother Alice Jameson, played by an elegantly dressed, seemingly benignant Dina Merrill?) are hovering like dark cumuli, and the film's ending sternly keeps the lid on its barbed irony of Clay's ultimate choice. In lieu of salting the plot, McGehee-Siegel duo resolves to making the mark of their cinematic style with their puny budget ($900,000). Potentially intensified by the sagacious choice of monochrome, the film emanates a beguiling retro-experimental flair with its punctiliously arranged compositions, high contrasted lighting and shades (inside the post-modern edifice equipped with bed-sheet- covered furniture and unadorned walls functioning as Vincent's clinical abode) and jumpy montages. Another boon to this glossy debut is Dennis Haysbert, a straight-up leading man material endowed with virility, sensibility and fine fettle, who totally has it in him to rival Denzel Washington's prominent status in Hollywood only if we were living in a world of justice, and SUTURE, at any rate, is the bona-fides of the overlooked standing of McGehee-Siegel's oeuvre.

"Plan 9 From Outer Space" is a brilliant accomplishment compared to this piece of crap. Whatever possesses some people to write reviews saying this movie has merit is beyond me. Whenever the discussion of the worst movie of all time comes up, I immediately think of this film "Suture". Some movies are so bad, they leave a vestigial imprint on your memory cells which one wishes could be obliterated. This is such a film. The visual imagery of having two individuals exchange identities, and then no one notices, is absurd. Nothing hangs together throughout the film. The script is preposterous. The miracle is the fact that funding was obtained, a greater miracle that the film was produced, unbelievable that copies are out there for you to rent, and mind-boggling that some people like it.

This film is like when you're sitting around drunk with your friends and some guy says something clever, and then you're like "Oh dude that would make a cool movie!" Then you wake up the next day and think "Wow, I was really wasted last night, what was I thinking"?*SPOILER*So, some scrawny old balding guy decides to kill his brother who is this big black guy. He slips his magical, indestructible drivers license into the black guy's wallet, and proceeds to blow him up. The dental records won't survive, but the ID card certainly will!The black guy survives, but has amnesia. But somehow everyone mistakes the black guy for the white guy... Apparently, being in an explosion gives you black skin, African facial features, a full head of hair, and a different voice and personality.Despite how insanely ridiculous this movie idea is, somehow the film continues to be completely predictable throughout. It's boring to boot.If anyone can give me one good reason this film exists, please do.But I will say the cinematography was pretty good/interesting.

I find it interesting how so many people would bother to try and draw deeper meaning from this low-budget, poorly acted, art film. It looks like it was put together by a rather ambitious drama major with some help from his friends.Of course there is a certain group (conspiracy theorists?) who go around thinking that "nothing is what it seems".Rather than come up with a real location or an expensive movie set the directors of this set could only find an abandoned car dealership to use as the protagonist's "mansion" Then they covered up the real furniture with sheets to try and make the place look like someone just moved in.If the definition of surreal is to take actors and have them read their line in a wooden fashion so that the audience doesn't think this is a real film, then this film qualifies.Having two people pretend to look alike when they obviously don't is neither interesting nor funny.This film is void of creativity, and is what happens when for lack of budget the producers take a stab at developing an art film with a cult following. They succeeded only it's a pretty small cult.