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Blood and wine

Threat advisory: High - High risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

There is no honour amongst thieves.

Wine merchant Alex Gates (Jack Nicholson) leads an enviable lifestyle: fancy shop, attractive wife (Judy Davis), sexy latina mistress (Jennifer Lopez), red BMW and impeccable taste in wine. In truth, his finances are stretched to the limit, his marriage is a shambles and his relationship with his stepson Jason (Stephen Dorff) is toxic.

The riches of his wealthy clients are all too seductive, especially a million dollar necklace he and veteran safe-cracker/poker buddy Victor Spansky (Michael Caine) conspire to steal but rather than being the key to freedom, the theft is the beginning of the end.

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

A Hollywood cliché (I won't do it the honour of calling it a script) saved only by the desperation of the characters as presented by the skill of the actors. There are twists and turns and tensions but they are so spread out that you can never quite get a grip on the plot. Blood and wine is billed as an emotional thriller but really it falls into some twilight zone between the two: never quite emotional enough, never quite thrilling enough. Most of the surprises aren't and there are no prizes for guessing who will die. The ending is so hackneyed that it would be funny if they weren't so serious.

If you're a fan of Jack (which I'm not) or you like seeing Stephen flashing a bit of skin then see it by all means, it'll be much better on the small screen than it was on the large.

Security censorship classification

M (Medium level violence, low level coarse language)

Not for public release in Australia before date

10 September 1997