I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Truly Dreadful Film

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I remember reading a review of this in one of those phone book sized movie guides you can get at a book store. They gave it their lowest rating, saying that it looked like it was all improvised in a series of motel room and apartments.Yea, I can kind of see it.Anyways, Wild Side is an OK noir film of sorts about a bank worker by day, high class prostitute by night (Heche) who gets involved with a crime boss (Walken) and his sexy girlfriend (Chen). Heche and Chen end up falling in love, and concoct a plan of sorts to get away.The film probably would have faded away if it wasn't for the scorcher of a love scene between Heche and Chen. With an agonizingly erotic set up (a long dinner date between the two, followed by a first kiss in the womens bathroom), the actual love scene is allowed to play out nice and slow, in a big bedroom with the summer light and breeze blowing in. Seriously guys (and girls, I guess) this is everything you could want in a scene like this.I wish I could say the movie around it was memorable enough to live up to that kind of glory, but it really doesn't. I'm sure Donald Cammell was a great director, and it's probably real sad that the film was chopped up before he could finish it to it's satisfaction. But I've got a feeling that whatever state this movie was supposed to in, it would have turned out the same.Eroticism aside, the lesbian scene is asthetically like a breath of fresh air. It's bright, and wide open in the way it plays out across the screen. Compared to that, the rest of the movie really does play too dark; It really is kind of like sitting with your legs crossed on the floor in the corners of dark apartments while listening to other people talk. Dreary, in other words.By the way, check out the Canadian video cover for this one compared to the static "3 portraits" cover we got in America. A classic example of how just how puritanical our culture can be sometimes.

Curiously, I continued to watch this...as unlike many flicks around these days, it was quite unpredictable. Okay. It has a few flaws, like Mister Walken's sometimes way out overacting, but this may have been down to the director's untimely death after the project was taken out of his control. Anne Heche, who everyone condemned a few years ago for riding on the coat-tails of her former love Ellen Degeneres, turns out to be quite an accomplished actress (check her out in One Kill), and is believable as a woman torn in many directions. It's also very easy to see why Walken's character would fall for her. Ryuchi Sakamoto's haunting music recorded nearly five years after the movie was shot, adds to the surreal atmosphere of some scenes, even though they can seem a little far fetched. Film Four has done a fine job restoring the movie, it's a shame though that the BBC's excellent documentary, Donald Cammell: The Ultimate Performance, isn't included on the DVD.

In "Wild Side", Heche, a bank exec by day and a call girl by night, gets involved with a night job client (Walken) who launders money, his wife (Chen), and his chauffeur and under cover cop (Bauer). The result is a silly, confused mess of a movie which has something to do with $169 million, a virus on a floppy disk, and Heche spending a lot of time outside her clothes and going lesbo for Chen. "Wild Side" is either a dark comedy talent showcase nonstory or a really awful and hokey drama or both. Reasons to watch are: (a) see a good cast go down in flames or (b) see Heche get naked or (c) both. (C)

Wild Side is one of those films you know could have been better. I've only seen the regular version, not the director's cut, so I'm lead to believe that the director's cut is much better.In the regular version, however, much of the cast sleepwalks through the script, especially Christopher Walken. About the only thing that redeemed the film was the lesbian scene between Joan Chen and Anne Heche. The regular version would have made good MST3K fodder. Apparently, the director's cut is much better. I'm going to check it out.