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Judas Kiss

1999, Movie, R, 98 mins

Judas Kiss: Review

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Made for theatrical release, this too-clever-for-its-own-good thriller debuted on Cinemax, even though it boasts a more prestigious cast and rather more visual panache than the standard blood-and-guts cops-and-robbers programmer. Coco Chavez (Carla Gugino), her boyfriend Junior Armstrong (Simon Baker-Denny), Lizard Browning (Gil Bellows) and Ruben Rubenbauer (Til Schweiger) kidnap young New Orleans millionaire Ben Dyson (Greg Wise). In the process, Coco kills a witness who turns out to be the wife of Senator Rupert Hornbeck (Hal Holbrook). Detective David Friedman (Alan Rickman) and FBI agent Sadie Hawkins (Emma Thompson) are assigned to the case and as soon as Friedman discovers that Dyson and Mrs. Hornbeck had been involved in a clandestine affair, he begins to suspect that the senator, bent on vengeance, engineered the kidnapping-murder. As he sets about proving his suspicions, the kidnappers pick up the $4. million ransom and begin to turn on each other. Though riddled with religious allusions, starting with the portentous title, the movie's real inspiration seems to lie in a Tijuana Bible version of Al Capp's long-running hillbilly comic strip Li'l Abner. "Sadie Hawkins Day" was a folk event invented by Capp and named after a legendarily plain country gal, while Gugino's Coco combines the wide-eyed provincialism of Daisy Mae with the body of Stupefyin' Jones. Unfortunately, most of the facetious script's attempts at smutty holler humor are sub-Russ Meyer level. The near-obligatory nod to Quentin Tarantino — a scene in which two hoodlums discuss the sexual preferences of Errol Flynn, Cary Grant, and Rock Hudson — is gratuitous and the grab bag of allusions to movies and literature just seem like showing off. The cast gives the material more than it deserves, with Rickman and Thompson deserving kudos for replacing their English accents with all-purpose Southern-drawls. Gugino's sensitive, open face nicely complements her awesome figure, and Bellows's performance rises above the level of routine via an attractive touch of prissiness that recalls Roger Cummings. leave a comment --Dale Thomajan
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