Cat Chaser

Scarred by his involvement in foreign revolutions, George Moran (Peter Weller) manages a third-rate hotel in Florida and carries a long-time torch for Mary DeBoya (Kelly McGillis), the lushly beautiful wife of Andres DeBoya (Tomas Milian), a high-ranking Dominican official and an expert in torture. Into Moran's play-it-safe environment comes Nolan Tyner (Frederic Forrest), another former soldier of fortune but one who has made the mistake of hitching his wagon to a retired cop named Jiggs Scully (Charles Durning) who's a henchman-of-all-trades for Mr. DeBoya.

Suspicious of his wife's every move, DeBoya is understandably miffed when George visits the Dominican Republic and he and Mary discover thay can no longer keep their hands off each other. Although Mary loves George, she's also fond of her pre-nuptial agreement. When her possessive hubby doesn't sanction her illicit trysting, he decides to boot her out without honoring their legal understanding. However, there is the matter of DeBoya's secret escape fund, coveted by both his dismissed wife and double-dealing Jiggs. Tricking his boss into fleeing his fortress, Jiggs pulls off a foolproof scheme with one hitch--Mary DeBoya.

While Jiggs is proving his usefulness and loyalty to DeBoya by forcing non-swimmer Tyner to drown in a swimming pool (death is the Dominican equivalent of being fired without severance pay), Mary has already switched a suitcase full of magazines for the sought-after moolah. After pulling off a bomb scare that sends DeBoya scurrying for cover, Jiggs plugs DeBoya and his bodyguard, before learning he's just been left holding the wrong suitcase. While George relaxes with Mary, he warns her that the Jiggs will soon be up. Arguing that DeBoya's money was to be his retirement fund, Jiggs threatens the lovers, but George kills Jiggs when he least expects a counterattack. George and Mary then go on an extended vacation with the loot.

You know a film is in trouble when it must resort to narration to give it a flavor that its visual style lacks. Although the screenwriters keep dropping in chunks of dialogue from Leonard's book, action maven Ferrara never finds a cinematic equivalent for the hard-edged detective prose. Often sluggish and unexciting in visual terms, the direction rarely suggests the man whose energy pulsed through MS. 45 and KING OF NEW YORK.

Where Ferrara does succeed is in eliciting strong performances from actors comfortable with the smoky, crime thriller ambience. Forrest is memorable as a mercenary-for-hire who literally gets in over his head. Cast against type, Durning is chilling as a roly-poly creep whose girth seems a byproduct of his own steady diet of hidden agendas. Saturnine, sexy Weller embodies Leonard's loner hero with aplomb, but McGillis (WITNESS, TOP GUN, THE ACCUSED) is a revelation. Liberated by the material and Ferrara's direction, she makes you forget those doe-eyed heroine roles she usually essays as she creates a complex heroine equally enamored of sex and money. Although Weller and McGillis make beautiful erotic music together, they are hampered by a screenplay that never jells and by direction that can't push the film over the obstacle of the interjected narration.

Diverting enough, CAT CHASER never gathers enough momentum to be a first-rate thriller. Most of the time, you can guess what will happen next; when you can't, you're more confused than curious. With so many talented pieces in place, the failure of CAT CHASER to rise above mediocrity is dispiriting. With more inspired direction and a less cluttered script, the cast might have delivered a film that built to a thrilling climax. Instead, CAT CHASER never capitalizes on its virtues and ends up chasing its own tail for much of its running time. (Excessive violence, profanity.) leave a comment