Listen (1996) User Reviews

Exciting, and Sarah Buxton makes a perfect Krista...

[Lisa-25 · 12 November 1998]

"Listen" is pretty good, especially since I like actress Sarah Buxton.

The movie is exciting, and rather complicated; it's all cleared up in the end, though.

Amateurish crap.

[David B-2 · 2/10 · 17 April 1999]

Quite the most boring nonsense I have seen in a long time. The plot was full of irrelevance, and the acting was the worst I have seen in a long time.

To make it worse, camera angles that made me feel sick were used , the incidental music was terrible and drowned out the dialogue (maybe not a bad thing then), and the shots of San Francisco looked as if they had been stolen straight out of the city tourist board's promotional video.

Oh, and the obligatory sex scene was not even half well done. Better lighting next time, please.

Quite a mess

[smatysia · 3/10 · 30 December 2014]

This movie has a lot of problems. Set in San Francisco, but obviously filmed elsewhere (Vancouver, I think) it overuses way too many of the erotic thriller clichés. It wasn't very erotic, with only one scene being an exception. It casts suspicion on too many characters. There is some really poor acting by the police characters, and the supposed big-city police department was shockingly inept. But I suppose if they had done a better job, there would a lot less to make a movie about. Brooke Langton and Sarah Buxton, the two leads, are really the only ones in the film who could act at all. They carried the corpse of this movie through all of the gaping plot holes, and in the end, one of the characters had to explain the whole thing in a voice-over. Ugh. Don't bother, although it's unlikely anyone will see it these days. I had taped it from cable many years ago, and just watched it. Probably not available commercially any more.

Pretty good sexy thriller

[fargo26 · 8/10 · 9 March 2000]

I rented this movie knowing it could have been real bad or real good ... and I tend to lean towards the "real good" side right now ... so it's thumbs up.. but no waaaaay up !! ....

It's not the greatest erotic thriller in the world of course but what you have here is a twisted tale of murder, sex, jealousy ... that is rather effective ... in part !!

I liked it also how the movie keeps you guessing the whole time wondering who is the real killer ... all the main characters could have been the one... although I guessed who it REALLY was at the halfway point myself ... oops ! .. Well, I had doubts later if I had made the right "prediction" ... so this one is better than the usual sexploitation film noir of the month...

I was reminded of Basic instinct (1991 ?) and Bound (1996) (among others !) while watching this one and even though "Listen" is not at the level of those other 2 movies it is still a fairly enjoyable one ... my guess is you'll like it if you pay attention to all the little details and enjoy a few twists and turns along the way ...

Wild things (1998) also appears to have been an "influence" here ... 3.5/5 for "Listen" ... ;o)

(from the front cover) "What You Hear...Can Kill You

[antipas2000 · 9/10 · 4 June 2007]

DVD synopsis:

Sara is a successful San Francisco advertising executive enjoying her independence and life in the big city. Her new boyfriend Jake, convinces her to move in to th same apartment building. When activating her mobile phone in her new apart, she discovers that she has a one way connection in to peoples private calls. Soon she becomes addicted to th allure of listening to other peoples most intimate conversations. Sharing her secret with her best friend Krista, the two women continue to surf the airwaves. Both frightened and excited about what they listen to, Sarah and Krista are drawn unwittingly into a sinister and deadly turn of events.

One of the things I like most about this film in particular is that it has a very clever way of showing to the audience that not all those you trust and love are who they say they are. And that some secrets should remain secret. I first saw this film on television one night when I was younger and being a lover of suspense thrillers such as this, I really liked it but did not quite understand it the first time. Now that I have in my film collection, i watch it often and love it to this day. This is a good film, despite that some may say that the acting is poor or the storyline is not good enough, i recommend that you watch it for yourself.

A guilty pleasure?

[Hermit C-2 · 8/10 · 13 August 1999]

Why should I feel a little guilty for liking 'Listen' so much? Because it has telephone voyeurism, lots of sex and an obsessive lesbian? Those things work to its advantage. This movie has all the stuff that a fan of the late-night cable channel thrillers goes for, including a complicated plot and a finger pointed at everybody.

Brooke Langton and Sarah G. Buxton are likable (and watchable) in this movie, at least in my book. Veteran Andy Romano adds some seasoning as one of the police detectives (there's always police detectives in these flicks, right?) and some of the younger actors like Gordon Currie, Joel Wyner and Evan Taylor do good jobs also.

Sarah Buxton is the best actress!

[SarahBuxtonFANatic · 10/10 · 20 January 2000]

I think Sarah Buxton is the best actress ever! (In my opinion, of course!) This is a great change in character from her other movies and tv shows. I really liked this movie because it has a great storyline and the plot goes deeper than you may think. To really understand this movie, you should really see it more than once.

Brooke Langton and Gordon Currie are also great in this movie. Each character is exceptionally important, and it really is a good movie! 10/10!!!

Pretty good actually for a 90's "erotic thriller"

[lazarillo · 16 April 2011]

As a lonely, single guy in 1990's, I watched WAY too many "erotic thrillers" on late-night cable. The "erotic" part was always pretty debatable, but very few of these movies were at all "thrilling", especially as time went on and they became increasingly lousy with slumming porn actors, interminably long softcore sex scenes, and horrid music (that all seemed to be composed by a guy name "Herman Beeftink"). This movie, even though it was a half-assed vehicle for then-star of TV's "Melrose Place" Brooke Langton, is actually a lot more entertaining than most.

Langton places a sexy young thing who has just moved into her boyfriend's apartment, but she has a jealous lesbian girlfriend (Sara Buxton) who won't let go. Through a crossed wire or something, she starts listening in on the phone sex conversations of someone in the building, and she realizes that this person's phone sex partners keep turning up dead. But is it the handsome but creepy upstairs neighbor, the landlady's disturbed brother, or is it perhaps someone closer to home?

OK, in real-life there are probably half a dozen ridiculously sexy women anywhere in the world who were actually into phone sex in the 90's(if they weren't getting paid for it that is) and five of the sex get murdered in THIS movie. So, obviously the plot is less than believable. Still, this does keep you guessing to the end. It has some elements of superior thrillers of the era like "Single White Female", but while it's not as good as that one, it actually does have a much better ending. The erotic content is kind of brief as these films go, but that also makes this more entertaining than most as an actual MOVIE. Being the seething cauldrons of acting talent that they were, Langton and Buxton could not be called on to actually express their lesbian passion by stripping off for some hot girl-on-girl action, but that is not nearly as big of liability as it would be in a lesser movie. I would actually, tentatively recommend this. It's not much of a compliment perhaps, but there are only two direct-to-cable 90's "erotic thrillers" I actually think are better than this, "Sensation" with former MTV "VJ" Kari Wuhrer and Eric Roberts and "The Fourth Floor" with Juliette Lewis and William Hurt.

Thrilled into confusion!

[badmelody · 21 July 2003]

This film makes for a very confusing ninety minutes - so confusing, in fact, that the perpetrator has to explain the denouement by means of a voiceover right at the very end.

The plot itself is very simple. Someone is apparently titillating women via a telephone chatline, meeting them face to face and then brutally murdering them. Overhearing these conversations by way of a faulty telephone handset, a young woman (Brooke Langton) comes to the conclusion that the murderer is someone living in her own apartment block. So to help the story simmer away nicely we are given a few ingredients to play with - a reclusive boyfriend, a lesbian lover, an aggressive co-resident and a weird caretaker, along with a couple of dark and languid sex scenes. It's true that the plot has a few twists but amidst the bemusement, they neither help nor hinder.

One of the problems of this film is that the two lead characters are so physically alike that it's difficult to tell which is which - only the shape of their mouths offers a clue. Both are nevertheless competent and credible actresses. However, it's the feeble storyline and not the acting that lets this film down. Ultimately, it's an erotic thriller without the eroticism and the thrills.

huh?

[BOB-629 · 24 October 1999]

This movie was.... confusing. Everyone here is a step away from being a serial killer, and the movie itself is confused as to where it is going. Is it a low budget sexploitation film or a really twisted murder film. Despite the above average acting, the plot was too confusing to care about after the film reached the halfway point. It was like the director kept trying to bring you to the climax of the film with the discovery of each person's darkest secret and you just get strung out and p****d when they keep putting you off. It might appeal to other people who could follow all the details, but the movie was just too busy for me to enjoy it. I'm the guy who still likes Scooby Doo. 5.5 out of 10