Black Widow (1987)

disgusting, overrated, pointless

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

We watched this again because it was on a late night movie channel. It's as trite and cheesy as we remembered. But for us, it's worth it just to watch the scenery because we visit Hawai'i when we can and love the islands. Let's see...The notion of putting a hotel literally on Kilauea was ridiculous even then. Now, it's simply hilarious. Conditions change day to day. Less than 3 months after our last visit to the Halemaumau overlook, the parking area, path, and the old beautiful cross were destroyed by an explosive eruption. Ask anyone who had property in Royal Gardens or Kalapana about that. Madam Pele can literally drop rocks on your head at any time.We enjoyed Debra Winger then and now, even though her character was obviously clichéd. Her performance was strong and she always looks like an attractive real person. We disliked Theresa Russell then and now. I've never been a fan, but her performance here was so bland and flat that she seemed half asleep the entire time. She's certainly not unattractive, but we don't find her believable as a femme fatale. She didn't ruin the movie, but it would have been better with someone else in the role. Someone who could have made the material feel better than it was.The so called sexual tension between the two women seemed awkward. Maybe the producers/director/writer thought it was edgy at the time? Theresa Russell's Texas accent (and her whole "look") was cringe inducing. But that was redeemed by swimwear, etc. in Hawai'i.Don't watch this movie expecting a rich, deep film noir experience. But do watch it for the scenery, Debra Winger's enjoyable performance, the supporting cast, and a plot that let's you float along with it.

"Black Widow" is one of my favorite films, much underrated, in my opinion. Teresa Russell plays a beautiful, chameleon-like and psychopathic woman who keeps recreating herself. Deborah Winger plays a seriously smart but un-selfconsciously frumpy federal agent obsessed with murders she believes are being committed by Russell's character. Both actresses do fine jobs, but Winger has the superior performance. The two women are at once fascinated with and frightened of one another. They have a semi-erotic mutual attraction, which I view as reflective of the strange relationship that good and evil have within each of us. The plot takes some complicated turns, but the viewer is rewarded by at least good (if not excellent) performances by all actors, and beautiful Hawaiian settings. The resolution moves a bit quickly, and it actually took me several times before I digested it all... but it's easy to get the basic story bottom line. The glam and the backdrops add to the ambiance. The depth of the interpersonal relationship is implied rather than shown. It has little bit of everything. Love, passion, lust, lesbian overtones,murder, mystery and intrigue.Overall, a great suspense movie of the "femme fatale" variety that is currently an under-explored area of film storytelling. Since about 1990, we have been in the age of the male dominated screen persona which makes a lot of Hollywood's offerings too cookie-cutter. Filmmakers could learn from "Black Widow". The female point of view is equally worth exploring as its male counterpart. For some reason, female centered stories are often characterized as not being universal. Which seems strange when you consider that 55% of the world's population is female.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

It took me almost thirty years to see this movie. I probably should have waited another thirty.Black Widow is about a woman who marries wealthy men, kills them, and then inherits all their money. Then some lady who works for the FBI tries to catch her. A wild premise, I know. I'll give you a few minutes to digest that outrageous plot line. But seriously: what could have been a dark character study or Hitchcockian-suspense masterpiece simply dies on screen with an underdeveloped script and plot holes too gaping to overlook.Why does Catharine (Theresa Russell) repeatedly marry and bury wealthy older men when doing it just once would have left her enough cash to live the rest of her life in luxury? How could every law enforcement bureau miss Catharine's obvious poisoning of her victims and not even classify the deaths as homicides? Why does Alexandra (Debra Winger) become obsessed with nabbing Catharine only to launch the silliest, sloppiest investigation in law enforcement history? ("I don't really work for the newspaper- I freelance. Actually I'm trying to sell a piece to Cosmo") How does the detail-oriented Catharine not see Debra Winger's clueless federal agent a mile away? Why would she continue to marry and kill even AFTER she knows Alexandra's true identity? Are there really all-girl scuba classes in which women get to play lesbian by performing CPR on one another?And a word here on the homosexual overtones in the movie: they're poorly-constructed and entirely half-ass. We know absolutely nothing about Alexandra as a person except that she refuses to date. Debra Winger is no help by playing Alex as a comatose shell: she doesn't seem attracted to men OR women. If a movie is going to imply lesbianism there has to be more than two throwaway lines and a make-believe kiss. I feel sorry for the reviewers who have patted themselves on the back for catching the "deep subtext" of the gay implications: there isn't more here than meets the eyes, my friends. There's less.This brings us to the ending, which is so absurd as to be laughable: Alexandra is arrested and charged with the murder of Catharine's husband while Catharine struts like a peacock in front of attorneys and law enforcement officers, even going so far as to visit Alexandra in prison! Because, you know, doesn't everybody drop by the local jailhouse to say hey to their spouse's killer? The answer is no."Black Widow' is a sloppy potboiler-wannabe, a suspense-mystery with neither element to be found anywhere on screen. The film's only highlight is James Hong as a scuzzy heroin-addicted PI, a character dark and dirty enough to hold your interest. Otherwise this movie is two frozen-faced women doing things that the script tells them to. Feel free to miss it.GRADE: C-

I had seen Body Heat from 1981 with the similar femme fatale theme and that film just comes to my mind after seeing Black Widow on TV tonight.Actually Black widow tries to copy some elements from the earlier film with very little success. I can give this film 1 point for high production values, 1 point for the score and 1 for good sets. That's just about it and it's such a shame that if this film had had a really good intelligent script, the outcome could have been much better.The film's actually really dumb and there's plenty of things that make very little sense. The pacing is actually so dull that nothing seems to happen in it for the first hour. It's just tough to watch when everything is so obvious from the very beginning to the very end. It's like watching a daytime soap opera that never ends.The main character's quite tame and uninteresting just like everything else in this film. Plot twists in the end of the film are just a little too late to save the film. It appears that there was very little substance but it still had to be made to last 102 minutes.Save yourself from an obvious disappointment and watch The Body Heat instead. It's got very similar story and it's the original.