Capturing the idiosyncratic flavor of Elmore Leonard's prose, the snappily acted GOLD COAST is a criminal caper that exhibits a firmer handle on its underworld verisimilitude than it does in oiling its suspense mechanism. Unfortunately, by the time every dog has had its day, the film has
run out of steam and left its audience clamoring for less. The film, which was produced by Showtime, made its home video debut in 1998.
Even though the death of Florida Mafioso Frank DiCilia (Richard Bradford) came in the arms of another woman, he arranged to keep his widow Karen (Marg Helgenberger) faithful after he was gone. Frank's wiseguy attorney Ed Grossi (Barry Primus) tightly rations Karen's inheritance and hires enforcer
Roland Crowe (Jeff Kober) to keep away any fortune hunters who might woo Karen for her money.
Karen's salvation comes in the unlikely form of ex-dolphin trainer Maguire (David Caruso), who shows up to collect payment for a country club heist commissioned by Frank before his death. Instantly smitten with Karen, Maguire agrees to prevent the intimidating Roland from extorting money from
Karen. Entrapping and bumping off Grossi in order to obtain control of the DiCilia fortune, Roland also tries to kill Ed's girlfriend/business associate Vivian (Wanda De Jesus) before planting Ed's body in the car trunk of a dope dealer.
After Roland sexually harasses Karen's maid Marta (Melissa Raven), Maguire concocts a scheme in which Marta's brother Jesus (Rafael Baez) will shoot Roland in defense of his sister; Maguire sets his snare by leaking false info about Vivian hiding out at Karen's mansion. In an unforeseen turn of
events, Marta panics, and Karen gives her the night off without telling Maguire. Roland comes gunning for Vivian. Instead of finding Vivian at the DiCilia house as he expected, Roland finds himself face-to-face with Maguire, whom he then attacks. Maguire distracts him and saves himself. Karen
shoots Roland and pleads self-defense. She rewards Maguire and keeps him out of the homicide investigation, but then abandons him, having never intended to share the DiCilia millions with anyone.
Atmospheric and sneakily plotted, GOLD COAST zips by at a fast clip until all the double crosses start backing up like bad plumbing. Elmore Leonard's complicatedly shifting reversals of fortune, which make his novels so compelling, on film eclipse everything else, including the key character
relationships. But before the climax grows unwieldy, GOLD COAST offers plenty of ancillary pleasures, including the escalation of Roland's sadistic methods, which begin with tossing a college student off a balcony and culminate in sexually humiliating Marta.
GOLD COAST also succeeds as a boy-beds-girl fable in which a Mafia widow seeks to reattain her innocence in the arms of a reformed thief. As the unlikely lovers, David Caruso and Marg Helgenberger play beautifully off each other, though Helgenberger's performance is hampered by too many scenes
that have her in hysterics. Intended to mislead viewers about how tough Karen really is, they have the opposite effect of alerting us that Karen is not above acting weak in order to gain an advantage. But despite its longeurs and strenuous attempts to throw viewers off the trail of an obvious
outcome, ELMORE LEONARD'S GOLD COAST is breezy crime-does-pay escapism about a cockeyed world where using people is a favorite pastime. (Violence, nudity, extreme profanity, sexual situations.) leave a comment
