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Consenting Adults (1992)

Rate: 5
Viewed: 1/24

ConsAd
1/24: After their time on The January Man, Kevin Kline and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio decided to do another dumb picture, and this time, it's called Consenting Adults.

At first, I thought the appropriate title was Swapping Wives, but director Alan J. Pakula found a way around it to make the film easy for me to swallow. Then, the twist came, and I was like, "Okay..."

Given the fact that the wife sought divorce and then shacked up with Eddy, I thought she had to be in the scam the entire time, but after fourteen years of trust? It turns out she never was, causing me to declare Consenting Adults a really, really stupid movie. Why Richard was comfortable with having her back afterwards is beyond me. The same goes for her after he agreed to the wife-swapping deal without her permission.

The biggest mistake is being buddy-buddy with the newly moved-in neighbor. The more entrenched the relationship is, the harder it'll be living next to him if things go sour one day. Then, somebody will have to move out, hence the ending which shows an isolated house with grass for miles and miles.

Forest Whitaker is ineffective as David Duttonville the insurance investigator. I wasn't sure if he was for real because there's no official confirmation of his identity. What Richard Parker should've done when he finally tracked down Kay (Olivia Kamen) at some run-down hotel in South Carolina is to bring Duttonville and a police officer along with him for confirmation because this is a murder/scam case they're dealing with. Instead, he handles it alone which keeps making his situation worse and worse.

When Kevin Spacey first showed up, I began to laugh. Look at his ridiculous hair. What a bad dye job. Then again, he has made a career out of playing arrogant assholes, thus giving himself away as the main instigator. It's bad enough when he sports an Uzi while waiting for Kevin Kline to come up the stairs but is surprisingly hit in the behind through the window on the second floor. So, what's this...Mission: Impossible?

All in all, you're better off seeing either Frantic or Malice than Consenting Adults.