Mulholland Falls

Mulholland Falls

Too much surface. Director Lee (The Edge) Tomahori's noir story serves as a McGuffin to its ripe style. Amid secret agendas and unspeakable acts onscreen you stare at the fall of light across old cops' desks. Musing on super-8 footage of naked Jennifer Connelly, your mind wanders. Ah, yes, an allusion to the opening shots of Chinatown. Roman Polanski's grand reinvocation of the dark intuitions of 1940s noir is there, too, in the sumptuous look, the plump list of stars (Nick Nolte, Michael Madsen, Melanie Griffith, John Malkovich), and the swoony, bittersweet soundtrack. The zigzags of the story that bring together two cheating husbands, one pneumatic babe, and (somehow) homosexuality waywardly recall The Big Sleep. The Atomic Energy Commission subplot feels like an homage to Kiss Me Deadly. With so many other movies to please, by the middle of the film it's clear that the story isn't going to thicken, that for all the amperage in Nolte's performance, for all the male rage in Michael Madsen and Chazz Palminteri, the hints of sexual malfeasance aren't going much past Nolte's domestic guilt about his affair with Connelly. And yet there are rich things. Tracing a path from his girlfriend to the head of the Commission (Malkovich), Nolte listens, hat in hand, to a purring existential science lecture about the invisible world of atoms. "Yeah," Nolte growls, "well, I see too much." Would that the filmmakers had let us see more. --Lyall Bush

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Director(s): Lee Tamahori
Production: MGM Home Entertainment
  1 win & 1 nomination.
 
IMDB:
6.2
Rotten Tomatoes:
30%
R (Restricted)
Year:
1996
107
1,555 Views

Share your thoughts on Mulholland Falls's quotes with the community:

0 Comments

    Quote of the Day Today's Quote | Archive

    Would you like us to send you a FREE inspiring quote delivered to your inbox daily?

    Please enter your email address:

    Citation

    Use the citation below to add this movie page to your bibliography:

    Style:MLAChicagoAPA

    "Mulholland Falls Quotes." Quotes.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 Nov. 2024. <https://www.quotes.net/movies/mulholland_falls_quotes_7794>.

    Know another quote from Mulholland Falls?

    Don't let people miss on a great quote from the "Mulholland Falls" movie - add it here!

    Mulholland Falls

    Soundtrack

    »

    Quiz

    Are you a quotes master?

    »
    "I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not."
    A Franklin Pierce
    B Vincent van Gogh
    C Kurt Cobain
    D Michael Jackson