Jade Jade The superb films of noirmaster John Dahl play in art houses and drive-ins & on cable television, while virtually every premise that Joe Esterhack touches evolves into cultural symbolism. You figure it out, I can't. BASIC INSTINCT: ALL the psychotic lesbians in the San Francisco Bay area know each other and they all have icepicks! SHOWGIRLS: Have a career in Las-Vegas & go to hell!
And now, god help us, there is "JADE", which wastes its three Oscar caliber stars (and promising newcomer Angie Everhart) in the following instructive plotline for women everywhere who want to add a little rip to their lives and their Marriages: You're Linda Fiorentino, see? (But Joe Esrterhack wrote the script, so you gotta be womanly this time around, which means that you get to have a career and talk tough and all that stuff, but the guys get to control the shots, even though you have one line that says YOU do, silly you.) You used to go with David Caruso, but you married Chaz Palmintieri, so you lie and tell Chaz that David's no good in bed so they can be friends, even though Chaz is the one you really think is a lousy lay. Chaz gets blow jobs from blondes on his San Francisco roof while you're making speeches in Los Angeles about psycho killers, so, Just for fun, you reinvent yourself as a call girl. Only you get mixed up in-three really nasty murders (a guy who's pals with Nixon, Ford, Reagan & Thatcher and a lesbian call girl who fools around with Governor Richard Crenna but would really rather be in bed with Jade, the legendary title character.
David gets to investigate, Chaz gets to obstruct the investigation and they both get to protect you. Spotlight wanker Eszterhack fearlessly strikes a blow for nineteenth century domestic morality when he implies that none of these bad things would have happened if only Linda had stayed home and worked a little harder on her sex life with Chaz. Breathtakingly convincing geographical note: Director William Friedkin shoots a high speed car chase in the middle of a Chinatown parade on Grant Avenue with the exact same camera angles he used in 1971's "The French Connection.
Copyright 1995 Monica Sullivan