Reese Whitherspoon is topless in this movie and it is thoroughly gratuitous. Unlike most young actresses, however, at least Whitherspoon can look back and know she was exploited in a quality film while she was working with some of the best performers of a generation and one of the biggest movie stars of all time.
Harry Ross (Paul Newman) used to be a cop and, after that, used to be a private investigator. But after a job down in Mexico bringing back the rebellious daughter of an aging movie star named Jack Ames (Gene Hackman), Harry gets shot. Ames takes Harry into his home while he recovers, then keeps him around as a handyman and family friend. Two years after the Mexico mess, the cancer-stricken Ames asks Harry to deliver an envelope for him. When he takes it to the instructed address, Harry nearly gets shot by a guy who was himself shot in the gut sometime before Harry arrived. Harry manages to just barely avoid getting killed until the guy dies, after which he discovers the man was named Lester Ivar (M. Emmet Walsh). I var was another former cop turned private eye and Harry learns that Ivar was continuing to investigate the disappearance of a actor 20 years ago. That actor was the then-husband of Jack Ames' current wife Catherine (Susan Sarandon). It seems the actor disappeared just in time to clear the way for Catherine to leave him for Jack. And if you think you know where the story is going based on that little plot twist, you're right. That is where the story goes. Harry's investigation into who killed Ivar, who's blackmailing Jack Ames and what happened to Catherine's first husband brings him into contact with another old private eye buddy (James Garner) and an old flame on the police force (Stockard Channing) before culminating in the sort of darkly hopeful ending that the best film noir always aspires to pull off.
This is a very good movie. As I mentioned earlier, it's not much of a mystery. You might not be able to guess every single detail of the story before it unfolds, but you figure out early on how it's going to play out and even how it will likely end up. There's very little "whodunit" going on here, but that's not a problem. This isn't a movie about how a mystery gets solved. It's about the people caught up in it.
The actors in Twilight are every bit as good as you could expect or want with performers of this caliber. Whitherspoon gives the weakest performance of the lot, but what young woman could measure up to the veteran talent in this cast? Newman, Sarandon, Hackman, Garner and Channing all do superb work as those rarest of all Hollywood movie characters – grown ups. These aren't old people tagging along in a young person's world and they aren't characters who behave a decade or two younger and stupider than they actually are. These are people with histories that define then and histories they sometimes struggle to overcome. Newman and Hackman are especially marvelous to watch as two men who both know the thread of their life is running thin and are readying themselves for that end. Even though you know where the story is going, it's a great pleasure to watch these characters get there.
Twilight is quite a nice film with lots of real human emotion, humor and drama. It takes a very down-to-Earth approach to desperate acts and how they can shape people's lives, in contrast to many films where it seems like every aspect of existence is heightened and exaggerated to ridiculous levels. Newman made a handful of enjoyable and classy movies like Twilight at the end of his career and they serve as a worthy capstone to his remarkable achievements.
Harry Ross (Paul Newman) used to be a cop and, after that, used to be a private investigator. But after a job down in Mexico bringing back the rebellious daughter of an aging movie star named Jack Ames (Gene Hackman), Harry gets shot. Ames takes Harry into his home while he recovers, then keeps him around as a handyman and family friend. Two years after the Mexico mess, the cancer-stricken Ames asks Harry to deliver an envelope for him. When he takes it to the instructed address, Harry nearly gets shot by a guy who was himself shot in the gut sometime before Harry arrived. Harry manages to just barely avoid getting killed until the guy dies, after which he discovers the man was named Lester Ivar (M. Emmet Walsh). I var was another former cop turned private eye and Harry learns that Ivar was continuing to investigate the disappearance of a actor 20 years ago. That actor was the then-husband of Jack Ames' current wife Catherine (Susan Sarandon). It seems the actor disappeared just in time to clear the way for Catherine to leave him for Jack. And if you think you know where the story is going based on that little plot twist, you're right. That is where the story goes. Harry's investigation into who killed Ivar, who's blackmailing Jack Ames and what happened to Catherine's first husband brings him into contact with another old private eye buddy (James Garner) and an old flame on the police force (Stockard Channing) before culminating in the sort of darkly hopeful ending that the best film noir always aspires to pull off.
This is a very good movie. As I mentioned earlier, it's not much of a mystery. You might not be able to guess every single detail of the story before it unfolds, but you figure out early on how it's going to play out and even how it will likely end up. There's very little "whodunit" going on here, but that's not a problem. This isn't a movie about how a mystery gets solved. It's about the people caught up in it.
The actors in Twilight are every bit as good as you could expect or want with performers of this caliber. Whitherspoon gives the weakest performance of the lot, but what young woman could measure up to the veteran talent in this cast? Newman, Sarandon, Hackman, Garner and Channing all do superb work as those rarest of all Hollywood movie characters – grown ups. These aren't old people tagging along in a young person's world and they aren't characters who behave a decade or two younger and stupider than they actually are. These are people with histories that define then and histories they sometimes struggle to overcome. Newman and Hackman are especially marvelous to watch as two men who both know the thread of their life is running thin and are readying themselves for that end. Even though you know where the story is going, it's a great pleasure to watch these characters get there.
Twilight is quite a nice film with lots of real human emotion, humor and drama. It takes a very down-to-Earth approach to desperate acts and how they can shape people's lives, in contrast to many films where it seems like every aspect of existence is heightened and exaggerated to ridiculous levels. Newman made a handful of enjoyable and classy movies like Twilight at the end of his career and they serve as a worthy capstone to his remarkable achievements.