THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 14, 1995 TAG: 9510130064
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
``JADE'' MIGHT more properly be called ``Jaded.''
It has flash, glitz and flesh, but it never quite delivers any real heat. With all this talk about sex and scandal, why is it that this seems like no more than a TV-movie made with an expensive budget?
What we have here is the familiar one about the rich, proper socialite who may just be turning into a slut at night. Linda Fiorentino, who is much better playing earthy women, is asked to play a psychologist, married to a prominent San Francisco lawyer, who may be running off for varied and sundry sexual affairs in her spare time.
There I go again, asking questions?
If you're to take ``Jade'' at all, you'd best take it on surface value. Yes, there is some value for the money there. The opening is a dazzling San Francisco social ball. The houses and the furniture are something to see - if only the actors would get out of the way.
There are two great chase scenes. Of course, the minute we see that it's set in San Francisco, we know there's got to be a car chase. The hills are alive with the sound of squealing tires. It's state-of-the-art but it was done better in ``Bullitt'' over 25 years ago. The other great scene is a chase through Chinatown, down Grant Avenue, looking toward the bay. These two scenes are, perhaps, worth the price of admission.
You have to put up with a particularly predictable mystery to go with them, though.
There is nothing here to suggest that William Friedkin is, still, not a highly overrated director. Yet again, in spite of all his flops since then, he has his actors going out claiming that they were so thrilled to work with the master. Here, he does no more than keep the glitz flashing.
David Caruso is cast as the good guy - an assistant district attorney who is assigned to investigate the murder. He finds that his former college love, Miss Linda, is a prime suspect. She may be Jade. He hopes not, but, in fact, if she isn't, we don't have much of a movie.
It's difficult to see how the small-screen viewers, declared Caruso to be a sex symbol. He's a competent actor, but his future is as a character actor, not a leading man. (He was much better, incidentally, in ``Kiss of Death.'')
Linda has a motive, sort of, because she knows, maybe, that her husband, a wealthy lawyer played by Chazz Palminteri (currently in ``Usual Suspects'' and Oscar nominated for ``Bullets Over Broadway''), has been cheating on her. A woman wronged, just may run off in the night and call herself Jade.
You'll figure this one out easily.
Along the way, the two chase scenes help, but it's time to identify Friedkin as the hack he's always been. ILLUSTRATION: MOVIE REVIEW
``Jade''
Cast: David Caruso, Linda Fiorentino, Chazz Palminteri, Richard
Crenna, Angie Everhart
Director: William Friedkin
Screenplay: Joe Eszterhas
MPAA rating: R (nudity, language)
Mal's rating: **1/2
Locations: Chesapeake Square, Greenbrier in Chesapeake; Janaf,
Main Gate in Norfolk; Kemps River Crossing, Lynnhaven, Pembroke,
Surf-N-Sand in Virginia Beach
by CNB