The tens of millions lost by this box office bust set back the careers of stars Alec Baldwin, Eric Roberts and Teri Hatcher a few years, but also proved that if you are going to make a crime thriller, it helps to put in a few actual thrills, or maybe come up with a plot that makes some sense. The story probably worked in its first draft, but the meandering, almost random string of events in the movie give the impression of a script that underwent too many re-writes. Plus, it's filled with unsavory types who all seem to be running some twisted game, but instead of combining these threads together the script just lets them hang. The viewer spends too much time trying to recall who is up to what and then when nothing comes of it all, gives up interest. The movie also tries early on for a hothouse Southern Gothic atmosphere, but fails to generate it, thanks to too much time wasted on Eric Roberts' character's boxing obsession, and the fact that Hatcher's femme fatale act is played out too sparingly and seems unrelated to anything until it's too late for the audience to care. Baldwin's central performance is not very interesting and it is never clear whether we should sympathize with him or just hang around waiting to see if he gets whacked. Kelly Lynch is apparently in the movie too, but her character seems superfluous and sketchy, as if her part was at some point cut way down. The result is an incomplete performance that again fails to generate much interest. This pretty much sums up the movie. An attractive cast of good actors hang around expensive southern plantation sets posturing with one another and it all just fails to go anywhere. No wonder it flopped. It's not awful, but nothing here really works at all.
Review of Heaven's Prisoners
