Save your money for something good and enjoyable

best movie i've ever seen.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

FEMME FATALE is another example of how Brian De Palma's star has waned over the years. Give me the director circa 1980 and the likes of DRESSED TO KILL and BLOW OUT and he could do no wrong; but as with many of the young directors of the 1970s, he seems to be unable to make a good film these days. FEMME FATALE, written and directed by De Palma, is a case in point. It's a confusing, convoluted thriller, badly over-directed by the once great; the opening robbery sequence should be amazing, featuring orchestral music, shocking scenes of violence and sexuality, and hard-working cinematography. Instead it feels overblown and silly, and it's hard not to burst into laughter at the earnestness of it all.Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, best known as the blue-skinned mutant in X-MEN, is a poor choice for the lead role; she just doesn't have the acting chops for the job. Antonio Banderas is better, but underutilised and acting with tongue in cheek for the most part (and who can blame him?). The film seems to go on forever and deals one unconvincing plot twist after another, and in the end it just went over me rather than involving me.

As an example of how to convey information with a minimum of dialogue, this movie is absolutely outstanding. Its plot unfolds so naturally and gracefully across the screen that, as well as telling its tale with great efficiency, it also creates a wonderfully hypnotic atmosphere. Its story about a well-planned diamond heist involves double-crosses, blackmail and revenge as well as some reflections on the level to which individuals are able to control their own destinies and interestingly, it also includes a number of Hitchcockian influences such as voyeurism, doubles, confused identities and the disguise motif.Stylistically, the emphasis is on presenting the action with the kind of deliberate pace and fluid camera-work that together contribute so strongly to the dreamlike mood of the piece. This, in turn, makes some of the plot's stranger coincidences, apparently illogical developments and moments of deja vu seem far less incongruous than would have been the case, if they'd have been seen in a more conventionally-filmed movie.During the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, Laure Ash (Rebecca Romjin-Stamos) has a key role to play in a heist that's been planned by her gang-leader, Black Tie (Eriq Ebouaney) and posing as a press photographer at one of the premieres, sees a model called Veronica (Rie Rasmussen) who attracts a lot of attention because of the very revealing gold, serpent-shaped, diamond-encrusted piece of body jewellery that she's wearing. When Laure and Veronica meet in the ladies' room immediately before the movie's due to be screened, Laure is seen apparently seducing the model and during their encounter, removes the various pieces of Veronica's body-jewellery and drops them to the floor. Black Tie, who's hidden in the adjacent cubicle, then systematically swaps each piece for a fake replica in readiness for making off with the loot which is valued at $10,000,000. Things don't go so smoothly from this point on and culminate in Laure double-crossing her partners-in-crime and escaping to Paris with the stolen jewellery.In Paris, Laure is mistaken for a missing woman called Lily, who looks identical to her and so, after stealing her double's passport and plane ticket to New York, Laure takes the opportunity to escape to a new life in America. During the flight, she meets a wealthy businessman who she subsequently marries. Seven years later, when her husband, Bruce Hewitt Watts (Peter Coyote) is appointed as the American ambassador to France, Laure reluctantly has to return to Paris (coincidentally at the same time as Black Tie is released from prison). After a period during which she's able to keep a low profile, her cover is suddenly blown after freelance photographer, Nicholas Bardo (Antonio Banderas) takes a photograph of her which then appears in numerous publications and puts her life in danger because her fellow gang-members are out for revenge.The surreal series of events that follow illustrate further just how evil and manipulative Laure is and produce a dizzying succession of twists and turns that lead to the movie's entertaining and highly unpredictable conclusion. Intriguingly, during this part of the movie, it also becomes apparent that a number of things that had happened earlier, were not actually what they'd appeared to be.Brian De Palma's "Femme Fatale" is an immensely absorbing mystery thriller that features a woman whose characteristics are typical of the noir archetype and readily admits that she's "a bad girl, real bad - rotten to the heart". Rebecca Romjin-Stamos hits all the right notes as both Laure and Lily and Antonio Banderas is charming and humorous as her victim. The real star of the show, however, is the camera. The ways in which split-screen techniques, tracking shots and overhead camera angles cover the action are totally breathtaking and clearly the work of a filmmaker who fully understands and is inspired by, all the possibilities of cinema as a visual medium.

Femme Fatale is a mystery film stars Rebecca Romijn in the title role together with Antonio Banderas,Peter Coyote,Eriq Ebouaney and Rie Rasmussen.Director Brian De Palma blends the emotional netherworld of film noir with a stylish portrayal of life among the wealthy and powerful in Paris in this glossy thriller.Laure Ash is a beautiful but mysterious woman who has aligned herself with a small ring of jewel thieves, led by a man known as Black Tie, who has planned a major score during the Cannes Film Festival. Sexy model Veronica is scheduled to make a spectacular entrance for the screening of director Regis Wargnier's picture, wearing a body-hugging piece of jewelry worth a cool ten million dollars. Laure approaches the sexually adventurous Veronica and is able to seduce her, while at the same time stealing her diamond-studded outfit and replacing it with a carefully constructed counterfeit. Veronica, however, also makes off the loot without giving her partners their cut, and must go into hiding in order to avoid the wrath of Black Tie and his cohorts. Fate allows Laure to make her way to the United States, where in time she marries a powerful politician. Photographer Nicolas Bardo, however, had snapped a picture of Laure while she was on the lam years before, and when he takes an assignment to get a photo of the camera-shy woman, Laure realizes Nicolas is in a position to reveal her new identity to the world and put the bloodthirsty Black Tie back on her trail.The sheer pleasure of watching movies is celebrated in Brian De Palma's dazzling Femme Fatale. Working from his own intricate screenplay, De Palma indulges all of his trademark obsessions, upping the ante on Hitchcock with a Vertigo-like plot.De Palma's weaving a web of nonsense, but his plotting is so exuberantly absurd--and his frame so full of visual clues and relevant detail--that Femme Fatale becomes a joyous thrill ride at first encounter, and a crazily logical and grandly rewarding movie on subsequent viewings. In her best role to date, Romijnis everything you'd want a femme fatale to be, in a thriller that constantly challenges you to question what you're seeing.

I have no trouble re-watching De Palma's movies a 2nd time. Because the dialogue is not the point of his movies, but what is how the camera work is telling you. And if your concentration level was low the first time you saw one of his movies, for whatever reason, you should see if again. To see what you didn't see the first time Femme Fatale is no different. The title alone quietly whispers "cliche" in the back of your mind. And the opening "tiolet stall scene" at Canne (besides the joke) is not too promising, with Bolero blasting in the background. But it's uphill from there.I wasn't sure the casting of Antonio at first, but I guess he's not the "point", but just being the pigeon instead. There are again like another other De Palma film, amazing sequences. Like the photographic sequence around the church, the bathtub sequences, and the near ending slow mo with wedding, meeting and car accident tying things together.Oh, yes, there is the setup and the double cross. The sex on the pool table and so on. But it is how everything is shot, like a dream, here and there, like a TV movie, here and there. Somehow, makes me seem to recall seeing certain scenes somewhere, kind of despise it, and adds (maybe unintentional) campiness to cover the ingenious underlying scheme of the last act.Maybe it's like this : While the Cohen brother's movies gives me a sense of perfect execution (even Big Leobowski) - in that dialogue is perfect and not wasted, scene well planted, acting to the genre. They engage the intellect more. De Palma's movies flows like a butterfly and sting like bee. That is it moves more fluidly engages something underneath your mind. Not your emotions but not your intellect either. Your psyche?