Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)

Directed by Ridley Scott. Starring Tom Berenger, Mimi Rogers, Lorraine Bracco, John Rubinstein, Jerry Orbach, Andreas Katsulas, Tony Di Benedetto, Harley Cross, Mark Moses, Jim Moriarty, Daniel Hugh Kelly. [R]

NYPD detective Berenger is assigned to protect the socialite witness (Rogers) to a brutal mob murder in her swanky Manhattan pad, and despite being a happily-married man, he falls in love with her. Sleek romantic thriller is hard to take seriously, and is predictable from start-to-finish (right down to the climax that puts the cop’s family in danger), but director Scott brings enough style and glamour to the affair to cover up for a lack of ingenuity and erotic chemistry between the leads. Saddled with what could have been a thankless role, Bracco brings a considerable measure of attitude and feistiness to the table, but the script mostly ignores her emotional wreckage. Said script is what hurts this glossy genre exercise the most, as it fails to do anything interesting with the psycho villain (Katsulas) and is just as phony about the consequences of infidelity as a far worse (and far more popular) thriller from the same year: Fatal Attraction. Separate renditions of the titular George and Ira Gershwin tune are heard over the course of the film (the one over the opening credits is warbled by Sting); at least no one sings an overblown Dolly Parton cover in this bodyguard romance.

58/100