The Hot Spot (1990)

Directed by Dennis Hopper. Starring Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, Jennifer Connelly, William Sadler, Jerry Hardin, Charles Martin Smith, Barry Corbin, Leon Rippy, Debra Cole. [R]

Unscrupulous drifter Johnson elbows his way into a car salesman job in a small Texas town, and quickly lands himself in a hothouse of sex, blackmail, robbery, and murder. Madsen and Connelly steam up the screen, to be sure, even within the confines of their B-noir roles (femme fatale and angel heart), but Johnson’s character is a blank slate of amorality, shallow and short on motivation. As an imitation of hardboiled, sleazy Republic pictures from the 40s and 50s, director Hopper does an adequate job, but instead of getting tighter and twistier as it progresses, the film gets lost in its own convolutions and humid atmosphere. A curious case of a film that rambles on for far too long, yet feels incomplete when the credits start to roll, liable to inspire a stunned refrain of, “Wait, that’s it?” Adapted by Nona Tyson and Charles Williams from the latter’s novel “Hell Hath No Fury,” which dates back to 1952 when the style was still in vogue.

54/100