The scene setter for this movie is an overhead mirror shot of a couple having sex and to their credit they do seem to be enjoying it. Just when the bloke thinks this is as good as it gets the woman ties him up, brings him to a climax and stabs him repeatedly with an ice pick. Somewhat like the female spider which kills her mate after copulation, this is a woman that needs to be carefully watched, and with the body she has I am sure there will be many male and female movie lovers who will gladly spend the time doing so.
It isn?t quite clear who dunnit so that adds to the intrigue as the cops are called in to investigate. Nick is one of the detectives assigned to the case and he has a history of undisciplined acts, including the rather famous but unnecessary shooting of a couple of tourists a few years before. It is clear that the Internal Affairs section of the San Francisco Police Department thinks Nick is a loose cannon and they ride him too, increasing the pressure. He has given up the booze and the fags and with the help of his Police therapist, in more than just a professional sense, he has managed to maintain a greater degree of control over his life. All that is about to change as he tangles with Catherine Tranell, a famous author who had recently released a book that used as a plot an almost direct description of the murder that took place in the opening. The major question is whether Catherine perpetrated the crime or was unlucky to have life imitate her art.
As a psychologist herself, Catherine knows how to push the right buttons and it quickly becomes evident that she is out to do a job on Nick. She seems to know a great deal about him and every revelation stirs the pot further as he attempts to play detective and she plays seductress. Almost needless to say Nick falls off the wagon and takes to the booze and the fags again under the pressure but decides that he is the only one mentally strong enough to take on such a difficult task as working out whether Catherine is a killer or just an author.
In one of the better-known movie scenes of all time, Catherine attends an interview with the Police after literally throwing on just a dress. We movie watchers get to see that she has nothing on underneath and at the interview she makes that perfectly plain to the interrogators as she swivels in her chair and crosses her legs. The looks on the faces of the cops are almost worth the price of the DVD alone. She takes a lie detector test and passes, something Nick claims is easy enough to do if you know how, apparently from personal experience.
When the Internal Affairs guy who was riding Nick is found dead he too becomes a murder suspect but he sees it as another twist in the lethal game Catherine is playing. As he spends more time on the investigation the clash of egos between Nick and Catherine draws them to the almost inevitable love scene where startling similarities to the opening murder are played out. Nick finds out that the author is bisexual and that Catherine likes her female lover Roxy to watch her with men, something that doesn?t seem to faze Nick at all. After meeting at a disco Roxy attempts to kill Nick by running him down but ends up dead herself after losing control of the car. Further investigation reveals that Roxy has a lurid past, having killed her brothers when she was younger. It becomes evident that Catherine?s background research for her books involves her with a range of homicidal maniacs and the question is whether the research is just that or an attempt to gather information to commit another crime.
As the movie builds to its finale there are many plot twists as Nick starts to work things out. It becomes apparent that his therapist has been caught up with Catherine in the past and it is not clear who might have been the one with the more sordid past. The last meeting of Nick and his therapist girlfriend ends in tragedy as Nick?s partner is brutally slain and Nicks ends up shooting the therapist. As the films ends with Catherine and Nick in bed together again planning a long and loving life, the appearance of an ice pick under the bed raises more questions about who the real murder was. The film leaves it open to each and everyone to decide, based on the range of facts discovered throughout the movie, whether Catherine is indeed a crazed murderer or just an author. I wonder what you will think?
I have checked out some other reviews for this movie and some seem to be less than complimentary. Granted it may be difficult to make a connection with the lifestyles of the main characters but the movie was meant to entertain, not act as a documentary. There are enough good looking people to satisfy most, there is some very spectacular scenery, the car chases are well done and the strength of the main characters is abundant. I enjoyed it because as a psychological thriller there were enough twists to make the whole thing interesting from start to finish and it has a great ending where you are left to draw your won conclusions. I am still not sure who dunnit and that either says a lot about me or a lot about the quality of the movie. I am forced to come down on the side of the movie being a good one.

THE EXTRAS

You can choose language and select scenes but that?s it.

CONCLUSION

Catherine is a best-selling author whose works bear an uncanny resemble to reality. Can Nick, the stressed San Francisco policeman match wits with the beautiful writer to work out whether the books are just dress rehearsals for the crimes? Or are the crimes merely cover for a mad killer?