Sea of Love Reviews

I already saw this movie but, since it was ages ago, I thought I might as well check it out again. Back then, Al Pacino was going through a strange periode in his career. Indeed, in the 80’s, he made only 5 movies and except for ‘Scarface’, all his other movies were not really amazing. With ‘Sea of Love’, he actually made quite a come-back 4 years after ‘Revolution’ which had been a massive critical and commercial flop. Basically, it turned out to be a decent steamy thriller, a classic genre of the 90’s, and I have to admit that most of it actually worked fine. Indeed, there was a nice film noir mood and Pacino and Barkin had tons of chemistry together. Even the relationship between Frank Keller and his partner played by John Goodman was actually fairly well developed. However, the whole concept of the detective falling in love with a murder suspect was hardly original. Furthermore, they focused so much on the burgeoning relationship between this detective and his suspect that there was not much room left for the actual murder investigation. I mean, I never really bought their theory (the fact that I already knew how it would end probably didn’t help though) and, to make things worse, the killer simply showed up pretty much out of nowhere during the final act so they could wrap this up during the last 10 mins. Still, compared to what he is doing nowadays, Al Pacino was still at the top of his game back in those days and the guy was quite spellbinding to behold (the 90’s, after the 70’s obviously, were his best decade). Concerning Ellen Barkin, I have never been a huge fan but I have to admit that she was pretty much pitch-perfect here. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it is a decent thriller and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.