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.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Back when it was released, I saw this movie. By now, 2018, I kept a good memory of it, especially it was quite interesting and visually recreating. But frankly, I remembered few and bad about the plot. I saw it again last night, and was delighted, literally, because this kind of films are no made anymore. Also allow me to say that this cast is not available anymore. The thriller is very well done, with a very good realistic and original non-cliche plot and again, the cast, although they are still alive, I am already missing them. To me, it was a cinema feast. I can't recall more than 30 to 40 movies of which I can say the same. Anyway, whatever your taste, this is well done, it will draw your attention throughout its entirety. Very highly recommended!!

The story involves the theft of a multi-million-dollar necklace by thieves Jack Nicholson, who runs a wine shop in Miami, and Michael Caine, a safe cracker on parole. Nicholson packs his suitcase intending to leave his wife, Judy Davis, and his stepson, Steven Dorff, and run off to New York with his innocent girl friend, Jennifer Lopez. In New York, he intends to sell the hot ice to a fence and return to split the cash with Caine.At the last moment, Nicholson has an argument with his wife, she clobbers him with a poker, frantically throws some clothes into Nicholson's suitcase, and drives off with her son. The necklace is stashed in a compartment of the suitcase, although neither she nor Dorff knows it.They find out soon enough. Nicholson and Caine track them to Key Largo and there are arguments, fights, a car chase, until Davis and Caine wind up dead, Dorff takes off in his new boat for the horizon, Lopez drives off alone with one of the stones, and Nicholson winds up in the hands of the law.It has a lot going for it. Nicholson and Caine rarely go wrong. Judy Davis does hysteria well. Jennifer Lopez is a natural actress, a beautiful young woman with a cantilevered rear end. The locations include some of the more colorful parts of Florida. And there's one effective action scene during, and immediately after, the car chase.So why doesn't it work any better than it does? It's a mean-spirited movie. Every character seems greedy, spiteful, and deceitful. There's nobody to root for. It's easy to argue that this is rather more like real life than having good and evil splashed across the screen, but the values don't go much beyond that. No one has any particularly generous impulses. If someone dies, they simply disappear from the story. The only scene in which a genuine conflict of motives appears is when Nicholson is rooting around the bloodied body of his dying wife in an overturned car, searching desperately for the stupid necklace and sobbing with remorse at the same time. And even this is undercut by pettiness. Her last words to Nicholson: "**** you." The ill-considered roles cripple the performances too. Nobody is poor, but no one has a chance to do much more than try to outwit the others. It's also disturbing to see actors we like, like Caine and Nicholson, in parts so petty. They're fine when they are outrageously malignant and venomous. (Nicholson ululating hoarsely and limping through the snow with an ax in his hands.) But realistically, as reprobate as the rest of us? Nope.I also can't understand why the location shooting doesn't take advantage of Miami and the Keys, where it was clearly shot. We see mostly interiors and back yards. Even a fishing boat in the Gulf of Florida feels claustrophobic. There's no sense of space or even of the city. And the photography doesn't help, somehow nudging a viewer into the perception that southern Florida is chilly rather than shimmering in humidity and heat. Where's the sweat? John Huston's "Key Largo" was all shot on a Warner Brothers' sound stage and does a better job of establishing the atmosphere. Finally, the MacGuffin -- that million-dollar necklace -- bespeaking a lack of imagination. Sounds like a job for Charlie Chan.Well, I don't mean to be too harsh. It's not badly done. It's just that so many opportunities for it to have been better were missed in the script and in the direction. Disappointing.

I'm not sure why I haven't seen Blood and Wine from start to finish up until today, but it has always been intriguing as that one Jack Nicholson movie I would see in bits and pieces on TV, with J-Lo in an early supporting role as the not-quite femme fatale, and Michael Caine as a guy with a very bad cough. Seeing it today I'm reminded of the classic work Bob Rafelson, director, and Nicholson did back in the 70s, even if they already reached their peak on their first film, Five Easy Pieces. But at the least Blood and Wine represents a return to form for Nicholson under the director he worked with most, either as actor or writer (he co-wrote Head), especially in the F.E.P. role of a SOB, which, of course, is usually as easy for Nicholson as raising up his eyebrows. His character, Alex, is a criminal, but not a very good one, as he isn't entirely able to balance out his goals as a jewel thief and as an adulterer with Lopez's Gabriella. It doesn't help that his wife (Judy Davis) has a son from a previous marriage (Stephen Dorff), who has it in for Alex big-time. Meanwhile, that jewel necklace is almost up in the air, and all his craggy partner, Vic (Michael Caine), can do is cough a lot and act more as a dumb muscle than as a consummate professional.So in these ingredients, Rafelson and his writers have a classic, cooked-up noir with enough style by its actors and locale to make up for what would be considered 'too violent' to show back in the forties (probably too sexy too, what with Lopez's 'assets'). Rafelson knows this material needs the best cast, and assembled is the best cast for the job, where desperation, greed, proper morality and just a moment of piece of mind get shifted around but are always the constants that all these characters. Nicholson is, well, Nicholson, cold to the bone but also a great liar, violent, passionate, but won't stop till he gets his way. He's not breaking new ground or setting up himself for the usual awards circuits, but it's still very cool to see him playing Alex as believable work of sleaze, almost in the tradition of Bogart (he actually does just as good, if not better, here than he did in Rafelson's 'Postman' remake). Dorff, meanwhile, could be considered the weakest link with a cast like this, but he holds his own fairly well within his character's basic lines, especially when considering the roles he'd have to take later on. Caine is a natural at playing against "type", which doesn't really exist for him, and disappears into this pragmatic but vicious parolee. And actresses like Davis and Lopez fit into their roles in the "noir" mood with equal levels of ease. I wish I could see Lopez in more roles like this where we might not believe totally her intentions for either of the men in her life, but is not necessarily cruel like the old femme fatales either.Released, as they say, under the radar back in 96, Blood and Wine uses its Miami and Florida locales like they're still lush and lustful and engaging, and the danger here isn't diminished from what's usually expected in the urban cities and dark alleys. Rafelson's got his A-game on here with an enjoyable story where we can guess pretty much where it will lead- the wills of men tested head-to-head- but it's a lot of harsh fun getting there.

In Miami, Alex Gates (Jack Nicholson) is a small trader of wines, married with Suzanne (Judy Davies). He does not have a good relationship with his wife and his stepson, Jason (Stephen Dorff). Alex has a Cuban mistress, Gabriela (Jennifer Lopez). One day, he decides to steal a jewel from a rich client, in the house where Gabriela works as a nanny. Alex associates to the tuberculous small-time crook Victor Spansky (Michael Caine). A series of mistakes jeopardize the heist and the selling of the necklace. This amoral and noir movie has a magnificent cast. However, something does not work well, being just an average movie about greed. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Sangue e Vinho" ("Blood and Wine")