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Blood & Wine

1997, Movie, R, 101 mins

Blood & Wine: Review

BLOOD & WINE
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A lean slice-of-lowlife tale, set in a Miami of glittering surfaces and threadbare lives. Alex Gates (Jack Nicholson) has the sleek look of a successful wine merchant to the rich and snobbish, but that exterior hides the shriveled soul of a small-time grifter with expensive tastes. Alex's complicated personal life includes his embittered wife Suzanne (Judy Davis), who sets him up in business; her truculent son Jason (Stephen Dorff); and a young Latina mistress, Gabriella (Jennifer Lopez). So Alex and emphysemic, greasy old con Vic (Michael Caine) put together a plan to steal a fabulous necklace and hock it in New York, all of which goes hideously awry when, sick of Alex's infidelities, Suzanne and Jason leave in a huff with Alex's suitcase, stolen bauble neatly secreted in a zippered compartment. Director and cowriter Bob Rafelson, a true son of the '70s, revels in this mean little story about stunted hopes and blighted dreams. Nicholson -- whom Rafelson directed in FIVE EASY PIECES, THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE -- gives his trademark wolf at the door performance; he's always Nicholson, but he can still hold the screen, which is more than can be said for the sulky, unappealing Dorff. But Caine slimes them both right off the screen: His Vic is an utterly convincing, utterly nasty piece of work, and once he's gone, the life goes right out of the picture. That said, Rafelson brings a murky complexity to a genre that's now almost entirely in the hands of shallow Quentin Tarantino imitators. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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