There are artistic ambitions right from the get-go her with a helicopter shot going from a crime scene across town over to the house of Madeleine Stowe and Kurt Russell like Hitchcock would often as a voyeur. Here there is some voyeurism at work- but I think it says more about this type of crime at your doorstep and the horror of that
The James Horner score is strong but clearly lifts and riffs from Carpenter’s Halloween score
Stowe coming down the stair in her robe foreshadowing Ray Liotta’s fascination with her nods to Double Indemnity and that same scene with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray
With Russell, Stowe and Liotta these are three charming actors and characters—I’m not sure about Stowe but the film transforms to play upon the strengths of Russell as a strong leading man and Liotta’s talent for playing characters with an edge—like the revelation he is in Demme’s Something Wild– piercing eyes
Believable domestic issues—and with his glasses on Russell almost reminds you of Gregory Peck- or maybe I’m leaping there because Cameron Crowe did the same thing with Vanilla Sky
Goes to some dark places, some nice POV camera work
There’s a handheld shot of the camera floating on Russell as he goes to jail
The final violent scene devolves a little from the promising premise and start as Liotta falls into a cliché
Kaplan tries his hand with some short dissolves but it doesn’t fully fit
[…] Unlawful Entry – Kaplan […]