Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

Such a frustrating disappointment

hyped garbage

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I would never have expected such inspired entertainment from such malevolent characters. The cat and mouse game that the Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) engaged in to whet the sexual appetite of Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) was cunning yet vile, and one has a difficult time placing these characters in an Eighteenth Century setting, as their machinations would have been perfectly at home in a Twentieth Century 'Dallas'. I liked the Marquise's description of Valmont as a virtuoso of deceit, that was all too fitting, but was just as undeniably true of herself. Adding to the rich tapestry of emotion, corruption and guilt in the story, the costuming was exceptionally extravagant and finely detailed, one simply marvels at the refined taste of the era's decadent near-royalty. As much as these characters tried to make you hate them, there's a perverse pleasure in seeing that they all eventually earn their due. In their case, all's well does not end well.

Acres of silk, a top-notch cast, and glimpses of nudity couldn't even begin to disguise the plain fact that Dangerous Liaisons (from 1988) was nothing but a fuggin' tedious bore. There was absolutely no question about it.Here's a brief list of some of the more fitting adjectives that I think best describes the ugly, distastefulness of Dangerous Liaisons' story, in a nutshell - Vicious, Humiliating, Misogynistic, Malicious, Treacherous, Hateful, Scandalous, Cynical, Sadistic.Set in 18th Century France - Dangerous Liaisons' story concerned the utterly horrid, backstabbing antics of rich and bored aristocrats. (Like, didn't these frickin' wealthy bastards have anything better to do?)In this slimy, little "real-life" game of villainous betrayal - Glenn Close played a detestable, butch-dyke Marquise and her despicable, little, two-faced conspirator-friend was played by the effeminate, mealy-mouthed John Malkovich (who was very badly miscast for his part).As an added disappointment - Keanu Reeves' performance as an oafish, little rich-boy was so wooden, in fact, that it made that little puppet-boy named Pinocchio look as if he were really all flesh and blood.

I really didn't think this movie was that interesting because clearly, I hadn't a clue what they were talking about. They used such bad speaking skills that you just clearly want to fall asleep and pretend you didn't bother wasting your time in watching a movie like that. I don't understand why they had to cast Glenn Close, John Malkovich and the beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer as the principal characters because, I just didn't think they really fit the role to act in a 19th century era movie. In my opinion, they just didn't seem to fit the roles. They are brilliant actors let me tell you, but not in movies like this. Its so heavily boring and just a pretty bad film. I wish I enjoyed it but I just can't understand why this movie won 3 Oscars, in my opinion I just think it doesn't deserve to be awarded with such big prizes. Worst film I've ever seen!

Having been wronged by their former partners Marquise Isabelle de Mertueil (Glenn Close) and Vicomte Sebastian De Valmont (John Malkovich) hatch a plan to get even. Mertueil challenges Valmont to bed the soon to be married 17 year old Cecile de Volanges (Uma Thurman). Having determined that this challenge alone will be too easy for him, bed-hopping Valmont also sets about trying to seduce prim and proper Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer) whilst her husband is away. His prize for completing these tasks is Mertueil herself, but is all this as easy as Mertueil and Valmont hope? Cruel Intentions was a loosely based remake of this film which came out 11 years later; I enjoyed Cruel Intentions the first time I watched it and have seen it several times since, but sadly I didn't enjoy Dangerous Liaisons quite as much.I think the problem here is that I didn't find the story quite as involving; it was a bit talky for my liking and if truth be told it was probably a little over-plotted as well. In some ways, I was also a little turned off by the fact that it featured a bunch of rich aristocrats - I just found it all a little bit pretentious which is why I generally don't like period dramas. Dangerous Liaisons just seemed to amble along without ever really involving me in the story. Cruel Intentions told pretty much the same story in just over 90 minutes and one has to wonder why the writers felt the need for this film to run close to the 2 hour mark? The truth is that there just isn't enough material here to warrant that kind of run time.Another problem I had here was that I never really felt any connections to any of the characters; they weren't really fleshed out particularly well and at the end of the day I just felt like I'd spent 2 hours looking at cardboard cut-outs in pretty costumes. I also had a bit of an issue with Keanu Reeves character; he was the music teacher in this and aside from his wooden performance, he added nothing to the film and may as well not have been in it (compare that to how important the music teacher was to the plot in Cruel Intentions).Aside from an obviously miscast Keanu Reeves; the performances were all excellent with particular praise going to Malkovich, Close and Thurman. Thurman was perhaps the biggest revelation and I felt that she accentuated vulnerability and was actually very good.The film doesn't even shine at the end and has a rather formulaic and obvious ending. To me the whole film just felt rather flat and un-exciting. I found the ending to Cruel Intentions to be moving and somewhat surprising.Dangerous Liaisons has far too much polish on it for it to be a truly bad film, but it's also not involving enough for it to be considered a great film. I thought Cruel Intentions was a better film to be honest.