Sliver
SLIVER (18)
D: Phillip Noyce
Paramount (Robert Evans)
US 1993
103 mins
Thriller
W: Joe Eszterhas [based on the novel by Ira
Levin]
DP: Vilmos Zsigmond
Ed: Richard Francis-Bruce
Mus: Howard Shore
Sharon Stone (Carly Norris), William Baldwin (Zeke Hawkins),
Tom Berenger (Jack Landsford), Martin Landau (Alex Parsons), Colleen Camp (Judy Marks)
Riding on the success of Basic Instinct and based on a
voyeuristic thriller by Ira Levin, this is just another psychotic sex movie scripted by Joe Eszterhas & starring sex kitten of the moment Sharon Stone.
Unfortunately, this plays out more like a comedy,
unintentionally funny when it should evoke tension and cheesy when it should be seductive.
Stone plays an uptight, chaste (ha ha) book editor who moves
into a Manhattan skyrise apartment owned by the creepiest guy in New York (Stephen Baldwin). There's a serial killer on the loose and he may live in the same building, but that is on the
periphery of the story as most of the movie focuses on Sharon Stone getting fucked.
The chemistry between Baldwin & Stone is excruciatingly
laughable, although the badness of this movie cannot be blamed on miscast performers alone. It was flawed at basic script level and the Ira Levin book deserved a better adaptation, especially the
bungled ending which was pieced together due to late reshoots. Very thin stuff.
3/10
