Séduction Fatale

A pathetic attempt of a deep, interesting and artsy movie. Just awful, and I usually find some good things in bad movies. Do yourself a big favour and avoid this utter failure.

Stylish with some surreal touches, but lost all the complexities of the book. It falls into the: 'so-bad-it's-entertaining' category. A vacuous, one-dimensional performance from Amber Heard adds nothing to an incoherent plot. Jim Sturgess epically over-acts to hilarious levels! What was the director thinking? No wonder Johnny Depp wanted to remain un-credited

Apparently the lead actress was a looker ten years ago and this made up for a complete absence of acting talent. she is not a looker unless one means her own blank stare, and she just destroys the film with unbelievably bad acting.

FYI for the one person who posted four reviews under different names saying "get the directors cut" -- all of us giving this one or two stars did see the directors cut. It IS the directors cut streaming. It is just as bad only more nonsense. More garbage does not make the garbage better.

Struggling writer Samson Young (Billy Bob Thornton), sleazy darts player Keith Talent (Jim Sturgess), and well dressed man Guy Clinch (Theo James) are in a dive bar when Nicola Six (Amber Heard) walks in dressed in sexy mourning. The clairvoyant femme fatale can see the deaths of people. In that moment, she realizes that she has seen her eventual murderer. She lives above Samson and is a character in the story he's writing.

It's a disjointed mess. I like a few of the surreal touches but dislike a whole lot more other ones. The Enola Gay makes Guy look stupid or is the writing stupid? Or is the writer's expectations of the audience is too low? At least, the story could be about Bockscar and Fat Man. It just makes the movie stupid overall. Next, Samson Young is an unreliable narrator. He's a sleepy unreliable creator. It makes everything in the movie unreliable. In addition, Amber Heard is nothing but sex. She's an empty character. There is no motivation. She is a figment of Samson's imagination. She is a surreal fake creation of the male libido. She's a sex robot bending to each male's fantasy. Finally, there is Jim Sturgess contorting his face unnaturally beyond camp. It's completely ridiculous. With the darts playing, it reminds me of The Big Lebowski but in a bad way. There is no loveable character. There is no fun. There is no enjoyable quirkiness. This is a mess waiting for the reveal which I don't care about with characters that are not compelling.

This movie is so bizarrely constructed and the editing is so bad, one can easily call it The Snowman of 2018.

While that failed venture was your standard police procedural made into a woeful example of outsider art through bad luck, this film aims for some near incomprehensible labyrinthine parody of every postmodern thriller made since Pulp Fiction or The Usual Suspects.

The closest that can be described to being a serviceable plot is that a slinky sexy woman named Nicola Six (no seriously that's her name) is blorn with the uncanny gift of premonition. And she guesses her murderer upon entering a sleazy London pub and being courted by a series of strange or suspicious characters. In between that, there is a lot of overwrought narration by a bored Billy Bob Thornton; a darts competition; and panoramic shots of what seem to be the Apocalypse.

If it had an inkling of self-awareness, it may be a spectacular example of stealth trolling pretentious film snobs and industry insiders everywhere. But given that this film stars Amber Heard (the poor man's Nicole Kidman) and rejected leading men like Jim Sturgess and Theo James, that seems unlikely.

Amber Heard is a beautiful sexy looking woman. But she does not yet have the screen presence to convey the aura of mystery or raw sensuality that seasoned pros like Sharon Stone or Angelina Jolie or Diane Lane could have done in their sleep. Theo James is slumming in a post-Divergent paycheck role that leaves nothing worth remembering. The worst offender of the main cast is Jim Sturgess as a gross looking barfly with a preposterous cockney accent and rotting teeth. This guy's performance is so ridiculously over the top that Nicolas Cage would be chastising Sturgess to tone it down.

The sole bright spot among the main cast is surprisingly enough the most controversial, Johnny Depp. No, seriously, Johnny Depp is in this movie and he's actually pretty good. It also helps that Amber Heard gets naked alot in this so at least there's that.

But unless you fancy yourself as one of those pretentious hipster schlock enthusiasts (such as myself ;).) I cannot recommend viewers to seriously consider watching this.