Very disappointed :(

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Blistering performances.

'Broad' as an American slang word for a woman must be pretty out of date now. I wonder if anybody still talks about either 'broads' or 'dames', as perceptions of women have moved on a bit. I don't believe they are 'chicks' or 'birds' anymore either. They also aren't any longer 'skirts' because so many don't wear them. All of these terms were somehow derogatory. 'Birds' were to be 'pulled', 'broads' were to be 'laid', and so on. In retrospect it is clear that these were all slang terms for women used by men, as put-downs to reduce women to objects of lust. It was OK to 'pull' a 'bird', but you can't linguistically speaking properly 'pull' a woman. So by reducing women to linguistic categories designed to diminish their worth, they could then safely be exploited without troubling one's conscience. A 'woman' still has some dignity, so in order to be exploited for purposes of lust, she must first be reduced in status to that of 'broad' or 'bird'. The reductionist urge to diminish women linguistically is equivalent to the use of the word 'untermensch' ('sub-human') by the Nazis to diminish the Jews so that they could kill them. Killing, 'laying', 'pulling', are all different destructive modes applied to linguistically diminished categories of humans specially targeted but who first need to be placed into special categories where it is OK to do anything to them that one wants. I say all of this because there is one remarkable moment in this film where Sharon Stone says of herself: 'I've always been a broad'. She has spent her life as a mobsters' moll, and in her moment of self-realization, freely confines herself to the category of 'broad' in recognition of her lifelong willingness to allow herself to be a lust-object for hire, to sleazy men who go around killing people. Sharon Stone is eerily convincing at being a 'broad' and she has the New York accent of a 'broad', and such a 'broad's' attitudes and mannerisms to perfection. So hers is a stunning performance in the central role of Gloria. The mobster whose moll she has been most recently is played by Jeremy Northam. For an English actor he did amazingly well at speaking like a New York gangster. He must have studied hard with his voice coach to pull that off! His casting is a typically inspired example of lateral thinking, doubtless by Sidney Lumet, the director. Lumet was such a thorough pro that he pulls off this film (please note that 'pulling off' is not related to the 'pulling' above mentioned, nor does it have anything to do with pulling off a jumper; are these linguistic notes becoming tiresome?) with his usual aplomb. The previous mobster whose moll Stone had been is called Ruby, and is played with unrivalled brilliance by George C. Scott, who oozes the most charming form of evil out of his eyes like lizard gall bladders being squeezed in a juice bar. And it glistens! Stone has just come out of prison after serving three years for something Northam had done. She comes to claim her money which was their 'deal', but Northam reneges, and the broad realizes she has been a chump. (Do people still say 'chump'?) And that is when the story really begins. Northam has just 'bumped off' (that euphemism is still in use) a family of Puerto Ricans in Washington Heights because the man had stolen a computer disc listing all the criminal contacts of the mobsters, such as which police officers and judges 'and even a congressmen or two' are on the mobsters' payroll. But the six year-old son of the Puerto Rican has escaped with the disc. Northam captures him and he is sitting in Northam's apartment where Northam is in dispute with a subordinate who wants to bump him off but Northam says: 'I won't kill a kid.' And that is when Stone turns up. Through complex circumstances, Stone and the kid (brilliantly played by child actor Jean-Luke Figueroa, who was actually nine but looked six) go on the run together. It gets more and more complicated. Stone has never liked kids or had any maternal instincts, and the film is largely about the transformation of her character through the enforced proximity to the kid. She starts to go all gooey, and the kid adopts her as his new mother, and it thus becomes a psychological drama. Lumet keeps this on an even keel and the film works because he was such a pro, and the same goes for Stone. The film could easily not have worked in lesser hands. But because it was done so well, the film is worthwhile, surprising, and very engrossing to watch. I noted that John Cassavetes was credited as co-writer and then discovered that he first directed the film GLORIA in 1980 with Gena Rowlands playing Gloria. I was unaware of that Cassavetes film and will now try and see it for comparison. Some have said it was far superior to Lumet's remake of it, and I would not be surprised. Gena Rowlands is respected on all sides for her great talent, and must have been stunning as Gloria. Certainly Rowlands was so overwhelming in Cassavetes's OPENING NIGHT (1977, but my rave review of it mysteriously disappeared from the IMDb website long ago), that I have no hesitation in pronouncing her a genius. So we shall see, but meanwhile, this film is very good regardless and should not be denigrated even if its predecessor were superior to it. Good remakes are very rare, and this certainly is one of those. Let's be fair.

Sharon Stone gets the chance to show she's more than just a skirt. It isn't often she does any actual acting, but this is one occasion on which she demonstrates true chops, playing a tough-as-nails broad from Brooklyn who, despite herself, warms to an orphaned kid. Nice to see Cathy Moriarty, of course, in anything -- another strong talent who usually gets called on to use very little ability. One of her more enjoyable turns outside the gritty job she did in Copland and the stock but nonetheless winning turn in Analyze That. John Cassevettes (it's amazing just how versatile this guy have proved to be over the years) script works well. Nothing terribly profound in this spitfire-gets-tired-of-being-shafted-by-her-crook- boyfriend-so-the-mob-catches-hell scenario. But, then, not everything has to be profound. All in all, it's a fine little film.

Gloria is a very good film that has a good cast which includes Sharon Stone, Jean-Luke Figueroa, Jeremy Northam, Cathy Moriarty, George C. Scott, Mike Starr, Bonnie Bedelia, Barry McEvoy, Don Billett, Jerry Dean, Tony DiBenedetto,Teddy Atlas, Bobby Cannavale, and Sarita Choudhury. The acting by all of these actors is very good. Stone is really excellent in this film. I thought that she performed good. The action and thrills is really good and some of it is surprising. The movie is filmed very good. The music is good. The film is quite interesting and the movie really keeps you going until the end. This is a very good and thrilling film. If you like Sharon Stone, Jean-Luke Figueroa, Jeremy Northam, Cathy Moriarty, George C. Scott, Mike Starr, Bonnie Bedelia, Barry McEvoy, Teddy Atlas, the rest of the cast in the film, Action, Thrillers, Dramas, Crime, and interesting films then I strongly recommend you to see this film today!

This movie has no business connecting itself with the great movie made in 1980 called "Gloria" and starring Gena Rowlands and directed by her husband John Cassevettes. That movie's opening credits sequence is better than the entire thing here - the paintings and the beautiful music set the mood for the movie.