Style over substance. Mood over plot. A director in love with his lead actresses. You can level many accusations at BLACK WIDOW, but a good film it isn't. Sure, it has potential; a decent set-up for one, and a first half hour that looks like it's really going somewhere. Sad, then, that the potential is wasted with a narrative that stalls and ends up going nowhere.
The idea of a serial killer who murders a string of husbands for their inheritance is a solid one, and BLACK WIDOW bolsters it with a decent cast: Theresa Russell's icy blonde bombshell is a forerunner to Sharon Stone's femme fatales, while Debra Winger's dogged cop is just quirky enough to be interesting. Kudos for getting all those notables in too: Terry O'Quinn as the superior, Dennis Hopper and Nicol Williamson as potential victims, a nicely sleazy role for James Hong.
But somewhere along the line the film loses its way. Instead of concentrating on building the suspense and developing a cat and mouse game between cop and killer, the writer and director become fixated on another kind of relationship between the two women, so much so that all the tension dissipates and it all becomes incredibly boring. There's no danger, no reason to keep watching. Even the twist ending does nothing to improve things. As a contrast, I recently watched the Hitchcock rip-off FINAL ANALYSIS, and despite the clichés it was ten times better than this because it remembered what it was throughout: a thriller, first and foremost.
The idea of a serial killer who murders a string of husbands for their inheritance is a solid one, and BLACK WIDOW bolsters it with a decent cast: Theresa Russell's icy blonde bombshell is a forerunner to Sharon Stone's femme fatales, while Debra Winger's dogged cop is just quirky enough to be interesting. Kudos for getting all those notables in too: Terry O'Quinn as the superior, Dennis Hopper and Nicol Williamson as potential victims, a nicely sleazy role for James Hong.
But somewhere along the line the film loses its way. Instead of concentrating on building the suspense and developing a cat and mouse game between cop and killer, the writer and director become fixated on another kind of relationship between the two women, so much so that all the tension dissipates and it all becomes incredibly boring. There's no danger, no reason to keep watching. Even the twist ending does nothing to improve things. As a contrast, I recently watched the Hitchcock rip-off FINAL ANALYSIS, and despite the clichés it was ten times better than this because it remembered what it was throughout: a thriller, first and foremost.