On M List of Movie Reviews

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The Morning After (1986)

Rate: 6
Viewed: 10/14

Morna
10/14: There's little mystery in The Morning After and a lot of fillers in between.

Jane Fonda haters are sure to be disgusted by the excessive amount of her screen time. It's so obvious that she was angling for another Oscar win by virtue of her overdone performance. Eventually, Jane Fonda lost out to Children of a Lesser God's Marlee Matlin because the Academy is a sucker for alcoholics, hookers, boxers, and people with disabilities. Worse, I don't care for her washed-up alcoholic character.

I had high expectations for the film because of Sidney Lumet and Jeff Bridges. Yet it doesn't feel like a Sidney Lumet picture and Jeff Bridges is mostly relegated to a supporting role with minimal impact although Raúl Juliá isn't bad playing the husband. That's why you're better off seeing Jagged Edge, a better neo-noir thriller which was released one year earlier.

If you notice how small the cast is, the whodunnit mystery isn't hard to figure out because it's pretty much down to two suspects and one of them can be safely ruled out if some logic can be applied. Because not much of time is spent on the mystery, it's hastily wrapped up with a nice bow-tie in an implausible manner which seems due to the last-minute creative spark. Technically speaking, the movie is twelve minutes too long because of Jeff Bridges' all-too-familiar ready-to-die smile just like how he did in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and Starman.

All in all, Sidney Lumet should expand the mystery plot while getting rid of Jane Fonda.