Andrew McCarthy, Chazz Palminteri, Daniel Baldwin

Too much surface. Director Lee (The Edge) Tomahori's noir story serves as a McGuffin to its ripe style. Amid secret agendas and unspeakable acts onscreen you stare at the fall of light across o...( read more  read more... )ld cops' desks. Musing on super-8 footage of naked Jennifer Connelly, your mind wanders. Ah, yes, an allusion to the opening shots of Chinatown. Roman Polanski's grand reinvocation of the dark intuitions of 1940s noir is there, too, in the sumptuous look, the plump list of stars (Nick Nolte, Michael Madsen, Melanie Griffith, John Malkovich), and the swoony, bittersweet soundtrack. The zigzags of the story that bring together two cheating husbands, one pneumatic babe, and (somehow) homosexuality waywardly recall The Big Sleep. The Atomic Energy Commission subplot feels like an homage to Kiss Me Deadly. With so many other movies to please, by the middle of the film it's clear that the story isn't going to thicken, that for all the amperage in Nolte's performance, for all the male rage in Michael Madsen and Chazz Palminteri, the hints of sexual malfeasance aren't going much past Nolte's domestic guilt about his affair with Connelly. And yet there are rich things. Tracing a path from his girlfriend to the head of the Commission (Malkovich), Nolte listens, hat in hand, to a purring existential science lecture about the invisible world of atoms. "Yeah," Nolte growls, "well, I see too much." Would that the filmmakers had let us see more. --Lyall Bush

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41% liked it

5,984 ratings

R, 107 min.

Directed by: Lee Tamahori

Release Date: April 26, 1996

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DVD Release Date: November 2, 2004

Stats: 175 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (175)


  • September 29, 2009
    An interesting attempt at neo-noir but it quickly loses its grip on the audience. Shame really because the cast is really good! It really should have been better!
  • May 18, 2008
    Better than I expected, but still just another LAPD 50's movie. Don't know why there are so many of this genera, and don't know why I seem to have seen them all. Still, this one is by far the best. The cast is great, and hearing John Malkovich talk about atomic energy is fun-t...( read more)acular. Plus Jennifer Connelly is smokin' and gets dumped out of an airplane (which makes her have floppy arms like gumby).
  • November 20, 2007
    some regular actors in like nick nolte and michael madsen, chaz and chris penn you expect this is gonna be alright, and it was but that's all. it's so so. jennifer connely looked fit as fuck in it. the running jokes were stale after hearing about them the 2nd time. it wasn't bad ...( read more)and nick nolte is starting to become an actor whom if i see his name in the credits of a movie i might watch it
  • September 10, 2007
    I'll put this film in a simple and kind way. Lee Tamahori is no Curtis Hanson or Roman Polanski and this film is no L.A Confidential or Chinatown
  • July 14, 2007
    An attempt to revisit hard-boiled noir detective movies that pre-dated LA Confidential by a year, but this is all style and no substance. All the elements are there, but it just feels like a half-hearted pastiche of ideas pilfered from other sources, and the ensemble cast of pseu...( read more)do-untouchables are largely unused and frankly come across as a bunch of unsympathetic thugs. There's little character development and no depth to the plot but having said that, I didn't hate it, mainly because of the presence of Nick Nolte and Jennifer Connelly. But there are much better examples of the genre out there.
  • December 13, 2008
    A good movie with a great cast but would have been better if it had more character development, There are also a few cliche moments & some unconvincing ones
  • November 20, 2008
    Tamahori's attempt at film noir is only fair. Sure, the murky cinematogrphy, abundance of snp brim fedoras and cigrette smoke make their presence felt but it just doesn't cut it. Nolte is a solid lead and the scenes he shares with Malkovich's sinister Army General are amongst som...( read more)e of the more memorable, but there seems to be a lack of any real energy or sense of destination about this film. The film has a powerhouse cast, Palminteri is likeable as the fellow cop constantly chipped for the psychiatrist he sees, but the storyline is fairly standard for the genre.
  • September 27, 2008
    Didn't feel like a 5, but I quite enjoyed it.
  • August 12, 2008
    want to see this film for Jennifer Connelly!!
    I heard she get fucked in film from behind, wooowh!!

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Mulholland Falls Trivia


  • What is Mulholland Falls?  Answer »
  • Andrew McCarthy and Ed Lauter appear in this movie about a 1940's anti-gangster squad of the Los Angeles Police Department, who use brutal tactics to get what they need.   Answer »
  • MOVIES NOT STARRING JOHNNY DEPP Yes, there are movies Johnny Depp is not in! This movie features the following actors/actresses, but does not star Johnny Depp Nick Nolte Melanie Griffith Chazz Palminteri Michael Madsen Jennifer Connelly   Answer »

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