Gloria *** (1999, Sharon Stone, Jeremy Northam, George C Scott, Jean-Luke Figueroa, Cathy Moriarty, Bonnie Bedelia, Mike Starr) – Classic Film Review 1,202

Sharon Stone is a powerful and attractive star presence as a gangster’s moll on the run, in Sidney Lumet’s rickety 1999 Mob thriller remake Gloria.

Director Sidney Lumet’s efficient and tolerable 1999 remake of John Cassavetes’s exhilarating 1980 movie Gloria wastes Sharon Stone yet again and often seems a pointless and lethargic exercise. On the other hand, without Stone and Lumet it would hardly be worth seeing at all, and it is passably entertaining, especially for those who haven’t seen the original.

Crime takes a back seat to the human dimension in Lumet’s rickety 1999 Mob thriller Gloria, which, on paper at least, should have provided Stone with an ideal vehicle as Gloria, a brassy, tough-talking broad, a gangster’s moll on the run from her slimy ex-boyfriend Kevin (Jeremy Northam), with a seven-year-old kid (Jean-Luke Figueroa) in tow.

Stone ought to have been warned off remaking classic thrillers after her version of Diabolique, but, though this movie is nowhere near as poor, it doesn’t bear any comparison with its unique source original.

Nevertheless, Stone is a powerful and attractive star presence and sometimes quite touching, the kid is appealing, Northam is brisk and efficient, and George C Scott (in his final theatrically released film) steals all his scenes as Ruby, the mobsters’ main man. And, with Steve Antin reworking Cassavetes’s 1980 screenplay, the story still works well enough under Lumet’s eagle eye.

It was, alas for Stone, a box office flop, grossing only $4 million at the North American box office on a $30 million budget.

George C Scott died on September 22 1999, aged 71. Sidney Lumet died on April 9 2011, aged 86.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 1,202

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