You really know that director Dennis Hopper's THE HOT SPOT is a Noir when, within ten minutes of entering a new town... one that's extremely small and fitfully hot, and in Texas... Don Johnson's so smitten with local blackmailed beauty Jennifer Connelly, he questions her with the kind of irked jealousy a husband would have...
But she's the good girl here, comparably, while buxom-blonde Virginia Madsen's our sultry femme fatale... married to Johnson's wealthy used car lot boss... as quickly taken with old Don as he was with young Connelly, and, within moments, they're sharing not only heated chemistry but explosive sack time...
The problems start when the ultra-atmospheric HOT SPOT becomes a thriller's BULL DURHAM with too many intrusive, overlong sex scenes that Hopper's obviously trying to push an envelope with... one that needed more of what makes the movie intriguing in the first place, like the opening when smooth-talker Johnson creatively lands his job...
Or as he's wandering around town or chatting with his co-worker or dealing with a local lowlife, or pulling-off the inevitable anti-heist bank-heist while the sensuously slowburn relationship with Connelly not only takes up most of the screen time, it robs poor Virginia's ability to compete or contrast: For if Jennifer were a devil in angel's clothes instead of the girl-next-door, she'd have easily taken both female roles.
But she's the good girl here, comparably, while buxom-blonde Virginia Madsen's our sultry femme fatale... married to Johnson's wealthy used car lot boss... as quickly taken with old Don as he was with young Connelly, and, within moments, they're sharing not only heated chemistry but explosive sack time...
The problems start when the ultra-atmospheric HOT SPOT becomes a thriller's BULL DURHAM with too many intrusive, overlong sex scenes that Hopper's obviously trying to push an envelope with... one that needed more of what makes the movie intriguing in the first place, like the opening when smooth-talker Johnson creatively lands his job...
Or as he's wandering around town or chatting with his co-worker or dealing with a local lowlife, or pulling-off the inevitable anti-heist bank-heist while the sensuously slowburn relationship with Connelly not only takes up most of the screen time, it robs poor Virginia's ability to compete or contrast: For if Jennifer were a devil in angel's clothes instead of the girl-next-door, she'd have easily taken both female roles.