Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

robert-temple-1 This is a superb thriller, which is given an extra dimension by the wonderfully sensitive performance of Meg Tilly in the lead. It is the film she made just before THE GIRL IN THE SWING (1988, see my review), in which her performance was absolutely spectacular. Here she was handed a two-dimensional character on the page and has transformed it into a four-dimensional person by the genius of her acting. An ordinary actress could have walked through the part and been competent but bland, and the film would have lost its zing. How many such films we have seen! But this film really works. The thriller plot is so ingenious, with some unusual twists, that I hesitate to reveal it. It is one of those double-cross and triple-cross stories. Tilly plays the innocent victim, fresh out of a good school and the orphaned heiress to a huge fortune, and obvious prey to various fortune-hunters. She owns eight houses all over the word, but the action takes place in the Hamptons on Long Island. The film is very well directed by Bob Swaim, an unusual American director who has made several films in French, and about whom little is publicly known. Few of his films are available with English subtitles, or at all for that matter. Someone ought to do a Swaim Revival. Swaim has an eye for good actresses, not just with regard to Tilly, but he has worked with Natalie Baye and Brigitte Fossey, for instance, so he instinctively goes for quality. The male lead in this film is played by Rob Lowe, perhaps best known today for appearing in the TV series THE WEST WING. He is just right for the part of the handsome but shifty young man who catches the eye of Tilly, having first passed through the arms and legs of the man-eating Kim Cattrall. Greed, greed, greed, that is the story, plus betrayal, betrayal, betrayal. Strong stuff.

jehaccess6 I liked a lot of this film. The yachting scenes and the wonderful score by John Barry really added to the film. Sometimes I seemed to be watching 'Thunderball', the score of 'Masquerade' was so obviously from the same composer.I really liked Meg Tilly, whom I had never heard of before this film. She was the perfect choice for the role of Olivia, the less-than-stunning heiress swept away by the gorgeous sailor Tim ( Rob Lowe). I never realized Meg is 4 years older than Rob until I consulted their entries in the IMDb. Here she plays a naive heiress several years younger than her love interest very convincingly.The film alludes to the death of Olivia's mother in an explosion on her yacht. Since this death would greatly benefit Gateworth, he likely had a hand in it. Cop Mike mentions how many propane explosions occur each year, so this hints that he engineered this 'accident'. However this point is never cleared up in the film.Rob Lowe and Meg Tilly really had chemistry together. Olivia had sort of drifted through her life in a fog because facing reality was too painful. Tim really cut through her defenses and awakened her to the joys of true love. Olivia immediately became pregnant and was overjoyed to have a child with her new love. Olivia's life became a joy instead of a long nightmare. What kept getting in the way was the idiotic plot. Apparently the cop Mike had worked the sailboat racing circuit before joining the police force in Hampton Shores. He met Tim and Olivia's stepfather Gateworth and hatched a scheme to murder Olivia and loot her estate.I could never figure out where the two outsiders expected to share in the loot from the estate. If Olivia died childless and unmarried, Gateworth stood to inherit the entire estate as the sole surviving heir. Why was accomplice Tim supposed to marry Olivia and muddy the chances of inheriting the estate? If Gateworth did in fact inherit the whole estate, why would he have shared the proceeds with his two accomplices? If these two suddenly became rich after the estate was settled, it would increase suspicion of foul play. Gateworth would already be under suspicion as the person to profit most from the untimely death of Olivia.The cop Mike should have deduced that he would wind up dead after contributing to the death of Olivia. His knowledge of the circumstances of Olivia's death would always be a threat to Gateworth. Tim would also be a threat to the continued enjoyment of Gateworth's new riches. After the marriage of Tim and Olivia and the death of Gateworth, Mike would have no claim on the estate. He would have to blackmail Tim with planted evidence that Tim had murdered Gateworth's girlfriend to shut her up. If evidence of Tim's guilt suddenly appeared long after the girlfriend's death, questions about why evidence had been withheld would arise.Tim's mistress Brooke Morrison, wife of his employer, was blackmailed into providing an alibi for Tim when Gateworth wound up dead in Olivia's bedroom. Brooke testified to the police that Tim had been in her bed when Gateworth was shot in Olivia's bedroom. The film fails to consider the problem Tim would have appearing in Brooke's bedroom fresh from his recent love scene with Olivia. To put it delicately, Brooke's nose would have to be numb not to detect the scents of recent lovemaking on her boy-toy Tim.Strangely Brooke's husband never found out what his wife had been up to or else didn't care. He continued to employ Tim on his racing boat and sought his services in future racing events.The film finale killed off almost everyone to tie off the plot threads. I could never understand how rogue cop Mike could hope to murder Olivia right under the nose of the Chief Of Police and escape the consequences.It seemed that the writers ran out of ideas on how to write the climax. I suppose the viewer was supposed to just be swept along with the flow and not think too hard about the logic of the plot.

gridoon Adequate mystery with lots of twists and turns...TOO many twists and turns, perhaps. Like some other mystery movies, this has a convoluted story that seems, after a certain point, to be adding complications for complications' sake, regardless of how far-fetched they may be. But it's a slick, handsome production, well-acted and fairly erotic, too. (**1/2)

swatwat This is one of those movies that I'm glad I saw when it first came out. I remember that the theater was almost empty, but when I was leaving I heard people saying things like, "I never expected to like it that much". Rob Lowe gained credibility as an actor in my eyes with this film(and with another film called Bad Influence).