OUT OF CONTROL (1998)

This is so obscure that I couldn't find any decent (or indecent) pictures from it on the web. But it is worth saying something about - albeit nothing very good. It is a desperate attempt to put together a film nouveau noir out of other peoples ideas. Sean Young steals a bag of money from her boss. She packs, drives out of town, changes cars at used car dealership and that night stops at a motel and takes a shower......whoa! we've all seen that before. Here, however, she continues her journey the next morning and eventually arrives at a remote diner which looks straight out of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. She is befriended by the kindly owner (an unconvincing performance from Tom Conti) and decides to stay there a while. Meanwhile her boss, who is a cigar chomping Al Capone clone who you'd have been embarassed to see in THE GODFATHER, is sending out his goons to find her. When one of the hoods finds her and attacks her Conti accidently kills him and later helps her gas another threat (who turns out to have been totally innocent) and they are both drawn into a web of suspicion and murder. The boss gets the barbershop treatment in a scene that is very similar to the one that opens Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES. The film saves a couple of twists for the climax but if you don't see them coming you've got no right to be traveling down these mean streets. Conti is a good, even great actor, given the right material. Here he doesn't have a lot to work with and has to do it with an American accent which I was constantly aware of although I can't say how authentic it was. Directed by Richard Trevor (English, I think) a film editor from his own script. He's done nothing since as a director. A shame as I like modest films, I like nouveau noir - but this totally lacks any originality. Rating *