Jade Recap

Jamie

David Corelli is the future DA of San Fran. That is until a prominent art dealer is found dead and his best friend’s wife, who also happens to be his ex-lover, is the lead suspect. It seems she’s been living a double life as the sultry Jade, mistress of the rich and powerful. Can he solve the crime, clear her name (and perhaps find love) before it’s too late? Find out in… Jade.

How?! The presumed future DA of San Fran, David Corelli, is pulled away from a high powered function to a gruesome murder scene of a rich businessman, Kyle Medford. He’s shocked to find that all evidence starts to point towards his former lover and prominent psychologist Katrina Gavin, wife of his best friend, defense attorney Matt Gavin… you getting this? They’re all rich… it’s all about rich people. Anyway, amongst Medford’s possessions is a video of the Governor of California having sex with a prostitute. Additionally a plethora of evidence suggests that Medford acquired high-end prostitutes for powerful men and then tapes them for blackmail. Things start going seriously awry as one of their only witnesses is killed, David has his brakes cut, and evidence begins to mount against Katrina. When shown the evidence, Katrina and Matt’s messed up married life spills over resulting in Katrina attempting to seduce David, which turns out to be her only alibi for another witness’s murder. Enraged, Matt confronts David at gunpoint, but they both realize that Katrina is in danger and rush to her aid. Arriving at the house they find an associate of the governor and colleagues of David’s attempting to kill her. They are subdued and the audience is like “phew, I’m really glad everything worked out a-ok for these rich fucked-up assholes. I hope there isn’t a twist where it turns out that they actually did it and got away with it.” But then there is. What a twist! Matt killed all the people and they got away with it and now uses that to blackmail Katrina into not leaving him… which is really gross. THE END.

Why?! As is typically the case, erotic thrillers kind of muddle the motivations. David just wants to solve the crime while Katrina really was living a double life as a high-end escort seemingly because she was bored with her life with adulterous Matt. Matt turns out to be the real sleezeball in the end. After finding out about Jade he creates the intricate plot of murder and mayhem to further entrap Katrina in his world and force her to take on her persona of Jade with him. It’s really quite gross when you lay it all out there. Not sexy really at all.

Who?! Usually we are highlighting Presidents here, but it is interesting to find the governor of a major state depicted. Richard Crenna plays Governor Edwards in this film. I wondered whether he played a President in his time. Answer? Yup. He played Ronald Reagan in the TV Movie The Day Reagan Was Shot… Governor of California and then onto the presidency… sounds familiar.

What?! I crossed my fingers and googled “Jade 1995 hatchet prop for sale” but alas not every dream can come true. I will instead highlight the rididididiculously long car chase that occurs in the middle of the film where David chases a suspect through a very very slow moving parade. The car in the chase was a modified ‘92 Thunderbird XL with some swizzeeet window louvers on the back. That’s kind of a product placement, for those that wish to be rad.

Where?! This is quite a good setting considering that you could easily imagine it set in Miami, Los Angeles, or any number of hot and steamy cities. In fact, thinking about it it’s really appropriate that it’s set in San Francisco since it’s not your typical hot and steamy erotic thriller. Doesn’t feel like a Miami erotic thriller. Got some sights and sound in there too. A-

When?! A nice solid A here as not only do you get a clear picture of a newspaper letting you know that it’s March 16, 1995, but there is a scene with an autopsy where it’s clearly stated exactly when the event is occurring. I think that might end up being the triad of temporal settings: newspapers, police stations, and medical facilities. Almost always get a non-holiday setting from one of those. A

Well… I did think this was watchable, but had a very, very strange tone to it all the way through. It almost felt like a less ridiculous 88 Minutes. That film seemed like a prank that someone played on Al Pacino a la The Game. Here everyone seemed like willing participants at least. It just seems very strange to have everyone in the film end up being the bad guy… like no one really comes out looking good in the end. And while I don’t require my films to have happy endings, I still squirm a little when it’s so unpleasant. I was pretty disappointed because erotic thrillers are usually so much fun with the weird twist and turns and the idea of “sexy” that shines through from the time period. This had all the ingredients, but instead of being “sexy” it’s like Friedkin was like, “well, if an erotic thriller happened in real life then it probably wouldn’t be sexy at all… it would probably be real depressing and gross… I got it!” Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! We were getting all hot and heavy with another erotic thriller. It really is just the best bad movie genre around. Let’s get into it!

P’s View on the Preview – The second Friedkin film in a row, but I was far more interested in Eszterhas, the writer. This film and Showgirls were both released within a month of each other in 1995. Quite the time for people to realize almost all of Eszterhas’ films were just kind of erotic garbage. Jade partially marks the end to the erotic thriller era in the early 90s, and thus has always been an exciting prospect for BMT.

The Good – Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh. There are maybe some decent car stunts? Some nice San Francisco vistas. It runs like a erotic R-rated version of a tv show, like Law & Order. Which means the story itself is fairly uninteresting, but the progression through the investigation has a few nice spots along the way. It is pretty slim pickings to be honest.

The Bad – Shockingly the directing I thought was fairly terrible. Especially the beginning. The music was also rather intrusive at times. The acting is basically top to bottom terrible, I can’t think of a single person who came out looking good here. The film is very confusing and the twist is somehow both telegraphed and completely ridiculous. If it was just a bit clearer it might have been tolerable. And the film is more thriller than sexy and it is not nearly funny enough to manage a Color of Night legacy, instead it just demonstrated perfectly why these films stopped being made. If I could make up a tagline for the film I might go with “It’ll make you feel gross!” … that is the best way to describe the film.

The BMT – Erotic thrillers are always good for BMT as examples of a genre that is basically dead and only lives in our collective memory of the early 90s. This is the weakest I’ve seen and likely marks the genre’s last gasping breath. Otherwise there is very little reason I will ever watch this film. I will certainly not recommend it. It sadly isn’t a very good BMT film in the end.

Roast-radamus – A very minor Setting as a Character (Where?) for San Francisco here, although I think you could move this to Seattle or Los Angeles without too much issue. Would actually probably make the more sense in LA to be honest. It definitely falls into a Worst Twist (How?) category though with the reveal that Chazz Palminteri was the actual murderer after learning of his wife’s alter ego Jade and her infidelity … it is honestly quite confusing, but that is roughly what I gleaned from it. I think this could sneak into Bad as just an unpleasant film to watch, but hopefully we get worse films that Jade to flesh that category out.

StreetCreditReport.com – It manages an astonishing number two in the Rolling Stone list from 1995, just behind Eszterhas’ other film Showgirls. Also gets a number 7 shout from Den of Geek’s 10 most unerotic thrillers. The second is better cred. I’ve come around on my idea of cred recently I think. Being a very bad example of a small genre is more interesting that just being such a disaster that it is the worst of a year for me.

You Just Got Schooled – While it isn’t quite as good as Jade, I just had to get my eyes on David Caruso’s tour de force CSI: Miami. … What? You think I’m joking? I watched the first episode of CSI: Miami for BMT. And guess what? It was kind of good? Like, not good good, but like out of CSI, CSI: Miami, and NCIS I would go Miami every time based solely on the first episode. Things going for it: David Caruso isn’t a colossal dick to all of his subordinates, none of the subordinates sexually harass their co-workers, and you get those Miami vistas. I hated the two episodes of CSI I’ve seen, and I think it was the main characters fault as he was just a weirdo. NCIS while amazing and hilarious is literally the opposite of all those things I listed and makes me feel gross when I watch it. Will I watch more? Hell no. But David Caruso could have done a lot worse and seems like a good (tv) actor. So he’s got that going for him.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs