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Stiletto Dance
HBO // R // May 21, 2002
List Price: $24.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
Eric Roberts tears a page out of the William Friedkin manual in this tale of two undercover cops police monitoring a multi-million dollar nuclear arms deal among the Russian mob and other criminal organizations.
Fans of Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. will find some resonance here. That film was based on a novel by Gerald Petievich, about determined but rule-breaking Treasury agents out to topple a counterfeiter with the artist's touch. Stiletto Dance is about two undercover cops who also bend the rules, one also dominating the other, and whose fates are somewhat similar to the two guys in the Friedkin film, though the milieu is different.
Stiletto Dance is a Canadian film pretending to take place in America (you see the occasional American flag outside houses), but it feels like a straight to video film: i.e., shaky but predictable plot, but lots of sex and violence. Eric Roberts is Kit Adrian. It kind of spoils the plot surprise to say that he is in fact an undercover cop, but he starts out as a jail bird who ends up with a buddy (fellow cop Jay Flowers, played by Romano Orzari) working for Russian mobster Anton Seaberg (Shawn Doyle, one of those good movie villains, whose running gag is that he hates getting blood on his expensive suits). After a series of "tests," Kit and Jay prove their worth to Anton, while Anton's enforcer Rolfe (Brett Porter), who wields a ghastly and rather huge knife that puts you in mind of something a Norse giant might carry, remains suspicious. He has cause. Kit soon starts an affair with Rolfe's wife, Lena (Lucie Laurier). Lena is the film's Mia Wallace. You're not meant to mess with her, but of course Kit does. This being a Canadian movie meant for HBO, there are good sex scenes between her and Roberts, scenes unashamed of female nudity. In their off hours, Anton and his two new employees spend their time at one of those fun-looking discos you only see in movies, filled with transvestites, models, dominatrixes, and gun-wielding Ruskies.
Things begin to fall apart. Kit and Jay start to argue; Rolfe finds out about Kit and his wife; and the deal Anton is forging gets out of hand. Director Mario Azzopardi keeps the film moving, and has a feel for the ethnic density of the setting, and explores unblinkingly the hardness of the life Kit leads. There aren't as many surprises in the narrative as their could be, unfortunately, even down to the climactic multiple Mexican Standoff.
The DVD
VIDEO: HBO provides a fine account of the film. It's presented full frame, and though it is a Canadian production, it doesn't appear to have been shot on video. It's purely functional cinematography, however
SOUND: Packaging indicates that there is a stereo soundtrack, but the box doesn't use the Dolby Digital emblem, so this may be one of the few movies marketed without DD sound. The DD emblem does pop up on "display" mode, however. It's an adequate 2.0 soundtrack, with an accompanying Spanish track in mono. Subtitles come in English, French, and Spanish.
MENUS: Static, silent menus offer 19 chapter scene selection for the one hour and 37 minute movie.
PACKAGING: A cardboard snap case holds the disc, which has matching images from the box on its label.
EXTRAS: Supplements are minimal: cast and crew info, and that's it. The silent, static text screens offer from one to four screens covering the careers of Eric Roberts, Shawn Doyle, Romano Orzari, Yaphet Kotto, and director Mario Azzopardi.
Final Thoughts: Stiletto Dance (the title refers to the knife, not the shoe heel, though there are plenty of those as well) is a good rental choice if you are up late and eating a lot of Fritos and sour cream and what to indulge in more fast, fattening food.
Eric Roberts tears a page out of the William Friedkin manual in this tale of two undercover cops police monitoring a multi-million dollar nuclear arms deal among the Russian mob and other criminal organizations.
Fans of Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. will find some resonance here. That film was based on a novel by Gerald Petievich, about determined but rule-breaking Treasury agents out to topple a counterfeiter with the artist's touch. Stiletto Dance is about two undercover cops who also bend the rules, one also dominating the other, and whose fates are somewhat similar to the two guys in the Friedkin film, though the milieu is different.
Stiletto Dance is a Canadian film pretending to take place in America (you see the occasional American flag outside houses), but it feels like a straight to video film: i.e., shaky but predictable plot, but lots of sex and violence. Eric Roberts is Kit Adrian. It kind of spoils the plot surprise to say that he is in fact an undercover cop, but he starts out as a jail bird who ends up with a buddy (fellow cop Jay Flowers, played by Romano Orzari) working for Russian mobster Anton Seaberg (Shawn Doyle, one of those good movie villains, whose running gag is that he hates getting blood on his expensive suits). After a series of "tests," Kit and Jay prove their worth to Anton, while Anton's enforcer Rolfe (Brett Porter), who wields a ghastly and rather huge knife that puts you in mind of something a Norse giant might carry, remains suspicious. He has cause. Kit soon starts an affair with Rolfe's wife, Lena (Lucie Laurier). Lena is the film's Mia Wallace. You're not meant to mess with her, but of course Kit does. This being a Canadian movie meant for HBO, there are good sex scenes between her and Roberts, scenes unashamed of female nudity. In their off hours, Anton and his two new employees spend their time at one of those fun-looking discos you only see in movies, filled with transvestites, models, dominatrixes, and gun-wielding Ruskies.
Things begin to fall apart. Kit and Jay start to argue; Rolfe finds out about Kit and his wife; and the deal Anton is forging gets out of hand. Director Mario Azzopardi keeps the film moving, and has a feel for the ethnic density of the setting, and explores unblinkingly the hardness of the life Kit leads. There aren't as many surprises in the narrative as their could be, unfortunately, even down to the climactic multiple Mexican Standoff.
The DVD
VIDEO: HBO provides a fine account of the film. It's presented full frame, and though it is a Canadian production, it doesn't appear to have been shot on video. It's purely functional cinematography, however
SOUND: Packaging indicates that there is a stereo soundtrack, but the box doesn't use the Dolby Digital emblem, so this may be one of the few movies marketed without DD sound. The DD emblem does pop up on "display" mode, however. It's an adequate 2.0 soundtrack, with an accompanying Spanish track in mono. Subtitles come in English, French, and Spanish.
MENUS: Static, silent menus offer 19 chapter scene selection for the one hour and 37 minute movie.
PACKAGING: A cardboard snap case holds the disc, which has matching images from the box on its label.
EXTRAS: Supplements are minimal: cast and crew info, and that's it. The silent, static text screens offer from one to four screens covering the careers of Eric Roberts, Shawn Doyle, Romano Orzari, Yaphet Kotto, and director Mario Azzopardi.
Final Thoughts: Stiletto Dance (the title refers to the knife, not the shoe heel, though there are plenty of those as well) is a good rental choice if you are up late and eating a lot of Fritos and sour cream and what to indulge in more fast, fattening food.
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