Palmetto ** (1998, Woody Harrelson, Elisabeth Shue, Gina Gershon, Chloë Sevigny) – Classic Movie Review 2017

Director Volker Schlöndorff‘s 1998 thriller is an interesting failure as a fatally flawed version of James Hadley Chase’s novel Just Another Sucker, adapted here by screenwriter E Max Frye.

Woody Harrelson stars as Harry Barber, a newly released ex-con and former reporter who makes the mistake of falling for a thieving femme fatale called Mrs Rhea Malroux (Elisabeth Shue), after she enlists him in her bogus kidnap scheme of her Florida stepdaughter Odette (Chloë Sevigny) that goes for real. Mrs Malroux hires him to fake the kidnapping of the dying millionaire’s daughter, but then he finds he is being set up as the patsy in the plot. Can he stay out of jail long enough for revenge and payback for his two years in prison on a trumped-up charge?

It also stars Gina Gershon (as Harry’s girlfriend Nina), Rolfe Hoppe, Michael Rappaport, Tom Wright and Marc Macaulay. Harrelson is convincing in a tricky role and Sevigny is excellent as the rich girl, but otherwise the star cast is mostly miscast and look uncomfortable, just not seeming streetwise enough for their characters. The spicing up of the movie with sex scenes is frankly simply a mistake, distracting the film-noir tale from its true purposes of exploring the dark side of human nature and telling a tense mystery yarn.

It’s all a bit sad and disappointing considering the talent involved, especially arty cult director Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum), who seems well outside his comfort zone with this kind of material. Nevertheless, Chase’s plot is sufficiently twisty and the handling slick enough to keep it watchable. It’s just you need it to be a much better movie.

In the support cast are Joe Hickey, Ralph Wilcox, Peter Paul DeLeo, Hal Jones, Salvador Levy, Richard Booker, Mikki Scanlon, Bill Larson, T W Terry, Jim Janey, Brett Rice, Vince Cecere, Don Bright, Ernie Garrett, Karin J Ivester and Marcus Thomas.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 2017

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