Suspense on the Couch: Booze, Sex, a Murder And a Mystery

Final Analysis

Directed by Paul Jonaou

With Richard Gere, Kim

Basinger, and Uma Thurman

Warner Brothers

Looking for suspense? Final Analysis is a movie that literally clutches and carries the viewer to the edge of his seat until its crashing conclusion. It has a few problems--including a sluggish opening and forced performances--but the suspense alone makes it worth watching.

We begin in the office of San Francisco psychiatrist Isaac Barr (Richard Gere) as he listens attentively to patient Diana Baylor (Uma Thurmond). "I've had the dream again," she confides, haunted. "I'm arranging flowers as a centerpiece..."

In the course of Diana's treatment, she convinces Barr to meet her sister Heather (Kim Basinger), a tantalizing blonde with luscious, collagen-injected lips and a "small problem" with alcohol.

Soon afterward--but not before she and Barr have leaped into bed--Heather, in a cough-syrup induced alcoholic frenzy, crushes her husband's (Eric Roberts) skull with a dumbbell. Barr gets his best friends to defend her, and she is found innocent by means of "pathological intoxication" and sent to a mental hospital.

Here, the plot thickens: Barr begins to see that the pieces just don't fit. In a very fishy sense, Diana's dream turns out to be a textbook case. Barr finds he has personal contacts with all of the pertinent witnesses at the trial. And what's more the sole beneficiary to Heather's husband's estate--the one obstacle to her inheriting it herself--has just died.

When Barr realizes that he is in danger of being sent to jail for the crime, the conflict is solidified. So begins the dramatic race to see who will pay for the murder.

The praise for this film falls heavily on the director, Paul Joanou. The movie's early plot moves very slowly. As the story progresses, the pace gradually increases, paralleled by the swelling intensity of the music and acting. By the final scene of the movie, the suspense and drama have reached their height, leaving everyone gripping his or her seat.

The major problem is the slow beginning. One must be awake to appreciate the rapid twists and turns of the second half of the movie, but the absence of plot in the beginning, added to lackluster dialogue, works like a strong sedative.

The acting also has a few problems. The role of Heather may be too much of a stretch for Basinger, who only achieves two modes of action in the movie--her soft-voiced seductress, and the other her screaming, perturbed psychotic.

If one can remain conscious through the first thirty minutes, Final Analysis proves to be extremely gripping. If suspense is what makes a movie watchable, this movie is definitely an eye-opener.