Diabolique

This is not right, I downloaded this movie with my hard earn MB only to discover the movie playing is different from the title, please let the title match with the movie,I would even manage to watch it but the movie is blur and speaking a language I did not even understand.stop deceiving people.

Diabolique not only lacks substance, it lacks any real effort on the part of the main players. Sharon Stone's character is completely banal. Kathy Bates pops out of nowhere to accomplish nothing except adding 30 more minutes onto this pseudo-thriller bore-fest. As the movie went on, I found myself concerned less and less with the gratuitous sex and not-so-intricate plot twists that I seriously considered going out to the lobby to play "Space Invaders."

A fascinating example of glossy Hollywood film-making. No, it's not good. But the movie is shot gorgeously, the score is sumptuous and oddly touching, and the movie is often hilariously campy. Some lame stabs are taken at making the material more relevant and serious (Kathy Bates character is a cancer survivor; lesbian overtones are rampant) but these just make it more absurd. Even if you haven't seen the original, you'll figure out the "surprise" ending a mile away. And a thriller could not possibly be plotted more carelessly. But you've got to give points to a movie that dares to make Sharon Stone a math teacher (at an all-boys school, no less!). Watch and marvel at how Stone gleefully tramples over doormat Isabella Adjani in every scene as if she's a drag-queen version of herself. Many will find this movie boring, but if you go in expecting a campy, silly good time, you won't be disappointed.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.) This is a sexploitation thriller but not all that bad, mainly because it is played somewhat tongue-in-cheek so that the plot absurdities might be overlooked in the interest of high camp, or at least in the interest of a mild diversion, and also because the women are diabolically diverting each in her own way. Especially effective in a satirical performance is Sharon Stone as Nicole Horner, a duplicitous siren teaching math at a boy's boarding school. (Just the thought conjures up visions of a vampish Mary Kay Letoureau, although director Jeremiah Chechik studiously avoids that angle.) Her partner in crime is French actress Isabelle Adjani who plays Mia Baran, an ex-nun who is the owner of the school unhappily married to (after being seduced by, it appears) the school's sadistic task master Guy Baran played with a steady macho malevolence by Chazz Palminteri. Adjani, whom I recall (vividly) from Truffaut's L'Histoire d'Adele H. (1975) in which she played Victor Hugo's daughter Adele who was obsessively in love with an English army lieutenant who didn't want her. The masochistic persona employed there is revisited here as Mia is used by both her husband and Nicole Horner, who is also Guy's mistress. Coming lately onto the scene is Kathy Bates as a man-despising, middle-aged, slightly butch Nancy Drew who doesn't let a partial mastectomy slow her down as she sleuths about looking for clues. She has some fine one-liners, but perhaps the best in the film comes from Sharon Stone. Two of the school's middle-aged bores have just come upon Stone and Adjani in the courtyard. Stone's ever-present cigarette inspires this from one of the men: "Don't you know that second-hand smoke kills?" Sharon Stone maneuvers past him, blows smoke in his face, and replies, "Not reliably." This is a remake of Les Diaboliques (1955) starring Simone Signoret which I have not seen. My guess is that the French version played it straight and made the ending at least plausible. Here we have not only a ridiculous ending but a plot in dire need of a plot doctor. I have also not seen the TV version, Reflections of Murder, starring that quintessential sex-kitten (and personal favorite) Tuesday Weld. Anybody got a copy? Bottom line: see this for Isabelle Adjani, whose over the top performance is garnished with an au naturale glimpse, and for Sharon Stone who is at her diabolical best. Be aware however that if sexual exploitation of the male libido is not your cup of tea, you will not like this movie, and even if it is, you may find the story more than a bit silly.

Hollywood version of the french masterpiece 'Les Diaboliques' is a disaster. Both actors and production are awful, the movie is full of cliches and Chechik tries to save something from the wreckage by a useless bloody end. There is no suspense or psychological tension in it, Clouzot's version was built on a subtle climate of anxiety and terror. Here there is only a bad mixing between buffoons characters (like the female inspector) and sentimental situations that could fit into a Reader's Digest dramatic story. This movie (can we really call it like that ?) is representative of the Hollywood (Holy-money) remake industry trying to make money on classics masterpieces (the remake of Psycho is another example). Don't even waste your time to see it, go directly to the original version of Henri-Georges Clouzot. 'Ce film est un vrai navet !'

Throughout a string of post-"Basic Instinct" duds ("Sliver", "Intersection", "Sphere", and this one), Sharon Stone has managed to retain her dignity on-screen and hold onto her celebrity allure off-screen. Even in the terrible "Diabolique", she is wickedly funny, dry as a poisoned martini, and sexy in her '50s movie-magazine way. The picture, a remake of the 1955 French thriller from director Henri-Georges Clouzot, has two female teachers plotting to bump off one's abusive husband, but the screenplay is full of holes and cheap shots. Red herrings abound as the two women find they are being watched, and are later dogged by a woman detective (Kathy Bates, doing her best with a sour role). Nothing quite fits together plot-wise at the conclusion of "Diabolique". It is one messed up jigsaw. *1/2 from ****

The original here is one of the best thrillers, energetic in a way that distracts us from the revelation of the con. This is a lesser movie, but adds at least three clever ideas. If you are interested in narrative structure, you'll be interested in remakes of films and how they change. (I think these are changes to the original.) First, in true folding style, they added a film within the film. The film within is a recruiting film, but that hardly matters. Second, they changed the dynamic of the detective by making him a her. This allows for the third change but along the way the possibilities exist for the three types of women: the virgin, the * and the shrew. It isn't played up well enough to matter, but its clear that someone's intuition was tuned. Third, there is a final twist that I think is quite different than the original's. It bonds the three women, already hinted in a lesbian tendency between the first two. But amazingly, the film didn't work well for me, probably because of pacing problems at various levels. Not that any level was off by the interplay of levels wasn't syncopated according to what engages. Its an intuitive process, I think, but quite rigid in its rules. Isabelle Adjani was cast perfectly, and introduced very skillfully. Beginnings are hard. This in its original incarnation was the first double con movie, I think. Adding a third was inevitable, I suppose. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Occasionally only, I should make clear. So bloody awful that not for the first time do I wish there was a minus rating on IMDb. Picked this up in a remainder bin for a couple of dollars and figured I had loved the French original from the fifties so how bad could the remake be? Might be a curiosity item and the cast was pretty stellar - for one the magnificent and rarely misplaced Kathy Bates was in it. Was I in for a shock. Nothing, absolutely nothing, worked in this movie. The plot, the minescule amount that was there of it, was drivel. There was no character development AT ALL. Some awful special effects (get those white eyes on the corpse, folks)and a supposedly creepy atmosphere that makes one chortle every time the usually lovely Isabelle gapes in a mirror at herself. Doesn't everyone look in a mirror when they're frightened? I know it's the first thing I think of, as I climb out of bed after a nightmare - I look in a mirror to make myself feel better. More threads going nowhere than you could count in a ragged old sweater. The lesbian sub-plot that never quite makes it. And it should. It is a key element in this woeful adaptation. Sharon Stone mincing around in an oddly wired looking walk with trampy tight clothes and really high heels and the strangest lipstick that doesn't leave a mark on her frequently lit cigarettes (she's a school teacher in a private school, Catholic, yeah that's believable). And on and on. How does one get funding for such a travesty, thirty million dollars, I believe??? And the overacting of Chazz and Isabelle... I could write a book on that alone. There should be a law against this kind of thing. 1 out of 10 for what I don't know, only that there isn't a zero rating on IMDb. And as I said, we need these movies, just to make us appreciate even the mediocre ones.

Guy Baran (Chazz Palminteri) is the dean of an old school inherited by his wife, the teacher Mia Baran (Isabelle Adjani) that has heart disease. Guy is an abusive husband and has a love affair with his mistress Nicole Horner (Sharon Stone), who is a school teacher in the same school. One day, Nicole and Mia plot a scheme to murder Guy and Mia spikes his whiskey and he faints. Then Nicole and Mia drown him in the bathtub and dump his body in the swimming school. Then Nicole dumps her keys in the swimming pool expecting that the school janitor finds him when he drains the pool. However there is no body in the pool and Nicole and Mia believe that someone knows the truth. When the snoopy retired Detective Shirley Vogel (Kathy Bates) investigates the disappearance, Mia freaks out and is near to destroy their alibi. What might have happened to the body of Guy Baran? "Diabolique" is a poor and unnecessary American remake of a 1955 French classic directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. The director Jeremiah S. Chechik succeeds not only in destroying the story and the atmosphere of the original film with clichés and a boring slow pace, but also in wasting a great cast with names such as Sharon Stone, Isabelle Adjani, Chazz Palminteri and Kathy Bates. Isabelle Adjani, for example, looks like a moron and not a fragile wife. The conclusion is a mess. My vote is three. Title (Brazil): "Diabolique"

Diabolique (1996) Sharon Stone, Isabelle Adjani, Chazz Palminteri, Kathy Bates, Spalding Gray, Shirley Knight, D: Jeremiah S. Chechik. Revamped version of the 1955 French thriller, with Palimenteri as a tyrannical boys-school headmaster done in by the joined forces of his mousy wife (Adjani) and icy blonde mistress (Stone) in a murder plot they wrongfully assume is foolproof. First-rate performers can't serve justice to this diabolical debacle, which doesn't start off too bad, then goes astray. This unspeakably bad rip-off trashes the classic original with too many `oh, come on' moments, ridiculous red herrings and twists of its own, and a finale right out of a slasher flick. Bates is even gone to waste as a retired detective who's investigating the case `for something to do'. Running Time: 107 minutes and rated R for nudity and sexual content, violence, and some language. * ½