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Love at Large (1990)

Rate: 7
Viewed: 7/20

7/20: If you told me Robert Altman directed Love at Large, I would've believed it.

But Alan Rudolph is the one who did. I'm a big fan of his two Keith Carradine films: Choose Me and The Moderns. The style of Love at Large is similar to Robert Altman's pictures, especially when it comes to the zoom-in-and-out effect.

Tom Berenger made his living by appearing in many sexy psychological thrillers that will require a suspension of disbelief such as Last Rites, Shattered, Sliver, and Body Language. This one is among them, and it's an keen picture that's full of anachronisms which sometimes pokes fun at potboilers. Yet the noir atmosphere is the key element.

There are good performances by Tom Berenger, Ann Magnuson, Elizabeth Perkins, Ted Levine, Annette O'Toole, and, most of all, Anne Archer who must have known what she was doing by exaggerating her character. When I saw his name during the opening credits, I said to myself, "Neil Young, the musician?" At any rate, it's an interesting choice.

The P.I. follows the wrong guy, and it's total fun all the way through with no real importance. But the case didn't go waste because three positive things came out of it: he got the right girl, Miss Dolan was finally rid of the dangerous boyfriend, and the mystery man will stick to one family from now on. Despite everything, it's exactly what Stella Wynkowski was looking for in her life: some danger.

All in all, Love at Large is an amusing film that keeps changing up things every five minutes.

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