6/10
First rate, but vastly underrated, psychological thriller in the "Sleuth" genre.
27 December 2003
Warning: Spoilers
Forrest Whittaker is superb in this taut thriller, in which he plays a burned-out hit man who is planning his last job. The job, however, is a dirty one even by his standards: he is ordered to murder the wife of a shady businessman and the wife's baby (whom, claims the businessman, is not his child, and a crack baby to boot). Sherilyn Fenn plays the wife masterfully, exhibiting a wide range of emotion from fear to desperation to joy to confusion, all within just a few minutes on camera. James Belushi plays a cynical police detective, while Sharon Stone (in her first post-"Basic Instinct" role) has a small role as Sherilyn's kooky sister, aptly named "Kiki". Instead of taking out Sherilyn and her baby, Whittaker bonds with her and, eventually, turns the tables on her s.o.b. husband.

The movie was filmed in Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Ohio, and Sharon, PA, where the producer's studio was located at the time (1991). These industrial locales add a dark mood to this even darker drama, one that is vastly underrated.
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