Touches You

the audience applauded

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

. . . plus a pair of other guys who call each other "sociopaths." This latter couple alternate between murderous episodes of trying to violently kill each other and more ominous scenes in which they kiss and make out. If there's a lesson that DEATHTRAP wishes viewers to learn, it's that orienteers who think the shortest distance between Points A and B is a straight line ought to be wary of blokes surveying for topographical maps. Standard operating procedure among this set seems to be luring rich women into sham marriages so that the actual mattress mates can conspire perfect DEATHTRAP crimes to live off the slaughtered loser ladies' loot. While it's true that DEATHTRAP's larcenous lovers do not get to share a "last laugh," this is no doubt an exception contrived for the DEATHTRAP plot which proves the Real Life Rule. As LOVE, SIMON is arguing in theaters right now, Congress MUST require ALL of Today's rising first graders to declare themselves as a matter of public record, so that no one can sneak around like a sociopath under false pretenses, engineering DEATHTRAPs for unsuspecting innocent victims.

First, the issue of Dyan Cannon's acting. She never was a top tier actress, and she;s not here. But I'm not sure she deserved all the bad press that she got for this film.My biggest criticism of this film is some of the scenes when characters are yelling...no, I should say screaming...at each other. It's uncontrolled screaming, rather than good acting, and it makes some of the dialog a little difficult to understand. Uncontrolled yelling is sometimes mistaken for actual acting.But then again, I never saw Christopher Reeve as anything but a very average actor. And he doesn't particularly impress me here.I also just have the feeling here that this film is too clever for its own good, although in reality, it's not half as clever as it thinks it is.Another complain I have is one that I always have about movies that take place pretty much in one room. I know this was a popular play, but I really dislike films that feel too much like a play. And this one does.My fondest remembrance of watching this film back in 1982 at the theater is when the audience realizes that the characters of Reeve and Caine are gay lovers. Some woman in the audience yelled out, "Oh my god. Say it isn't so!" Biggest laugh I ever heard in a movie theater.Really, the best thing about this film is that it takes place in an old mill which has been turned into a house. Unfortunately, when that's the best thing there is about a movie, it means it's not a very good movie. And then the very ending just confirms that.

There are two big problems with the movie. The easier problem to remedy is the pacing. There's just too much time spent on material that adds nothing to the plot or the ambiance. 90 minutes might have been a good length, but 120 minutes is way too long. The larger problem is that the final twist is so stupid it destroys the rest of the experience. A satisfactory twist in a movie consists of three parts: the twist is unexpected the twist makes sense/plausibility within the movie universe (ie no magic deus ex machina, no lucky coincidences) the twist is organic to the storyline. Once it happens, we review the previous material in our minds and see that, yes, it makes even more sense within the light of the twist. Something that doesn't follow these rules is not a twist, it's a gimmick, the sort of BS that leaves you swearing that you'll never again waste your time watching a movie by that particular director and screenwriter.This movie delivers a completely satisfactory twist in the first act, leaving one to expect that the second act will be resolved just as satisfactorily. But no such luck --- the second act ends with a gimmick. Unexpected yes, but barely plausible, and utterly inorganic to the story. The play (from what I read on Wikipedia) seems to have done a substantially better job of making the ending feel natural. So we have the not too unusual story of movie makers (the director? the producers? the financiers?) too stupid to understand what was actually valuable in the property they chose to adapt and insisting on "improving" it. Oh well, what can you do? The stupid will always be with us.

Deathtrap is one of those films, by proxy of its stage play roots (both based upon and being a satire of), that not only gets better by the halfway point, it becomes something even more incredible when it focuses on two characters we wouldn't think would be like this together. I'm not talking about the 'gay' thing, that shouldn't be looked upon as anything more than a garnish to the piece. I mean how it really becomes even more about the nature of plotting, how to make up something that has a beat-for-beat rhythm, but is strong enough and clever enough to throw people off guard. A work like Deathtrap would've impressed Hitchcock (there's a reference at one point, in due notice, to Dial M For Murder, also based on a play about the intricacies of plotting murder), as it's about the devilish wanton things with characters, and being stylish with camera-work so that nothing is ever too static. This is Sidney Lumet's territory, and he does very well at it.It's about two writers- one an old pro who is turning sour after a string of flops, another who is just about to come out with a first play to show to people- and how they spar off. A potential murder is plotted by Sidney (Caine), and his wife is hearing in plain earshot (i.e. in front of her) of how it will be done. And, indeed, we see it done on screen in a moment that is shocking despite what has been leading up to it, such as a trick with Houdini's handcuffs (not really his cuffs, by the way). But then a twist comes - it's a humdinger, one of the great ones in movies really - and I was engaged even more than before. What was at first an interesting little story of envy turned plotting for murder becomes a contorted piece on what it means to make it in the theater world. It's self-reflexive, even meta. I would kill (no pun intended) to see how it played on the stage.For Lumet, timing is everything, how to bend the comedy towards the believable and madcap without losing the reality of the thriller. He called it a melodrama, but I'm not sure that would be accurate despite its tendencies. It's a comedy in the style of Sleuth (also starring Caine) where the fun and what-will-happen-next aspect of it is intrinsic with the character's thoughts and actions. We soon learn, if not quickly than at some point, that no one can be trusted at their word, and that the thrill and fright can turn on a dime into absurdity and wild moments of fancy. There's a scene, for example, where Sidney discovers something written that follows the events of what has happened so far in the film's story, beat for beat. He's enraged, it can't get made, how dare the person who wrote it! And yet there's not a moment that we can believe what they're saying, while it is totally believable how Caine and Reeve are playing the scene. I loved that about the film, and about the characters.A note about Christopher Reeve: he's better here than in almost anything else I've seen him in, outside the obvious choice of Superman. He's given a meaty character with so much that he can play with; first he's the young, naive guy ready to collaborate with the great Bruhl... then when his "true" nature is revealed, he becomes a horse of a different color. He's a "sociopath" as Bruhl calls him, but Reeve makes him almost sympathetic in a way, and every note of his performance felt right, funny, scary, tinged with that glee we have with characters who are craven in what they'll do. Caine, to be sure, is at his usual tip-top professional self, and has some surprises in store with his far he goes with the character as well. But Reeve is the real breakout here. Dyan Cannon, too, is quite good, though somewhat overshadowed by her two male co-stars.Deathtrap might be too clever or not clever by half, but I couldn't see that the first time watching the film. I saw electrifying acting and some amazing dialog, and a few moments of direction and cinematography (one shot tracking up to Caine's face reading something is remarkable, as is the over the top lightning effects at the climax), and that it was about something even as it is popular entertainment. It's not as sharp or like a landmark as Network, but in its own right is as memorable for its intended audience.