Mortal Thoughts - Movie Review 1991. Review on Mortal Thoughts Movie

MORTAL THOUGHTS ~Murder Is A Secret That Should Never Be Shared~

Mortal Thoughts was a movie made by Alan Rudolph and released somewhere in the early months of the year 1991 (according to Hollywood, it`s in April, but in the UK, it`s around June 1991) The film basically follows a quite comparable script on books written on crime stories, because Mortal Thoughts is about two childhood friends, Joyce and Cynthia who work in a beauty parlour in Bayonne, New Jersey and who get entangled in a Murder case.

One of the friends, who is the owner of the beauty parlour, Joyce Urbanski (Glenne Headly) is married to an alcholic and cheap-minded James (Bruce Willis),who often swears and beats her, lies and steals a handful of cash from the cash register to go buy drugs and alcholic drinks. The other friend is portrayed by the famous Demi Moore. Her character is Cynthia. Most oftenly, she is the witness of the many beatings her friend Joyce gets with her husband. She feels agitated but can`t do anything to save her friend. She is already married to a calm and somewhat boring (inactive?) Arthur (John Pankow) and seems to be living a straight-forward life, much unlike Joyce`s.

What makes the film interesting at this point, is that the two women often discuss about killing James and getting away with it stating that he was a criminal-minded and abusive person. This is what later on spoils the case with the detectives... For example, at one scene of the film, Joyce fills the sugar bowl with some pest (sort of) poison and briefly tells Cynthia about it - and, scenes like this are so dramatic, that Cynthia has to run upstairs to warn James.

Then one night James and the two women go to a carnival, and James is murdered with a knife, and the women attempt to hide the body and cover up the death. Cynthia is then being interrogated and videotaped as they question her through the details of the crime. Unfortunately, another crime crops up and that is the one of Arthur, Cythia`s husband. Joyce, at this particular moment is the suspect of the second crime, as she threatened to kill him on the same day.

The screenplay is excellent, even if I don`t rate it as natural acting by all. The film leaks a bit towards the end. Mortal Thoughts is a film constructed with many flashbacks and something good about them, is that whenever they appear, they never reveal too much. In other words, they are tricky... which preserves the many surprises in the film. Image is decent (for a 1991 movie), but still language is quite offensive (with an occasional usage of vulgar and adult language) and picture is soft-like, which makes it match with the dark atmosphere created for the film.

Cythia tries to justify herself (and in some instances by protecting her childhood friend, Joyce) by denying some facts (She said earlier) to the detectives who seem to have only one goal in the whole of this film; i.e, to arrest Cynthia. In the end, Cynthia manages to get out of the questionning room, and it`s while making a last and violent flashback, that she remembers (realises her mistake?) of having killed James (because he wanted to rape her), by slitting open his throat fatally. She returns to the questionning room (obviously to admit all) and I guess.................the scene ends here in a suspense-like tone..............

MORTAL THOUGHTS is by Columbia Pictures. It is directed by Alan Rudolph and produced by John Fiedler and Mark Tarlov. Running time: 105 minutes. Classified R for brief nudity, obscene language, violence and drug use.

Rating : 8.9/10

This review has been further editted to my liking, if you want to see the credits of the movie, go under the comments section......

~Kris