# Palmetto (1998)

### reviewed by
Christian Pyle

    Palmetto (1998)

    a review by Christian Pyle

You know the plot: a dimwit with a shady past is seduced into committing a crime only to be double-crossed by a fatal femme. In "Palmetto," the dimwit is Harry Barber (Woody Harrelson), a reporter who's just been released from prison (he was framed by the gangsters and corrupt officials he was investigating). Enter la femme: Rhea Malroux (Elisabeth Shue), the sexy young wife of the richest man in Palmetto, Florida (Rolf Hoppe). She and her stepdaughter Odette (Chloë Sevigny) have a plot to extort 500K from the old man: Harry will "kidnap" Odette. After groping both women, Harry agrees. As everyone except Harry can see, he's being set up as a fall guy. Sure enough, before long, Harry has a dead body in his trunk and the cops on his tail. His brother-in-law (Tom Wright), an assistant DA, has hired Harry to be the press liaison for the case, so Harry gets a front row seat for his own manhunt (and we get to watch him sweat-literally). There are several plot twists, of course-a couple of them even took me by surprise.

Apparently every woman in Palmetto is a raving horndog, and they're on Harry like he's the only bone in the kennel. Shue vamps so broadly that I expected Tex Avery's wolf to show up. Her incredible performance in "Leaving Las Vegas" seems to have been a fluke. Here, she could easily be mistaken for Melanie Griffith. Shue's character is supposed to be a savvy schemer but she comes off as a brainless bimbo. In addition to Shue and Sevigny, the kennel includes Gina Gershon (who filled the dimwit-with-a-shady-past role in "Bound") as Harry's girlfriend Nina; when Harry gets out of jail, she licks his face (now there's a horndog). The parts are so overplayed that with a little push "Palmetto" could have been an over-the-top parody of film noir a la "Romeo is Bleeding." As it is, it's best watched at 2am on Showtime (the love scenes seem to have been written for one of that channel's soft porn programs anyway).

"Palmetto" has a well-known director, Volker Schlöndorff, who's best known for his adaptations of major literary works, especially "The Tin Drum." I suppose he must have been drawn to this plot-by-numbers script by the same admiration for classic film noir that led Scorsese to remake "Cape Fear." Schlöndorff tries hard-he makes an interesting motif out of the ubiquitous palmetto bugs-but nothing can freshen up this stale script.

    Grade: C-

    © 1999 Christian L. Pyle

    Chris & Tammy Pyle

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