The Spree

It's not exactly a new formula, but a movie about a competent female burglar who has trouble staying more than one step ahead of the law has potential to be entertaining. Toss in some double-crossing along the way and some suspenseful scenes, and you'd think a good movie experience would be just about guaranteed. Not in this case, though.

The Spree has a mildly interesting plot due to a couple twists I think most people won't see coming very far ahead, but that isn't enough to make it a good movie. In fact, the movie isn't even average, it's outright bad. The dialogue is some of the worst I can recall from any movie, and Beals and Boothe add flat performances to what was already a poor script. There are multiple sex scenes but they're all boring and almost identical, and the obvious cuts from the nude body double to Beals' face are as laughable as her bemused expression in each encounter. There is also an extremely weak attempt to provide some background for Beals' character in the form of an odd side-plot involving her ill father, but it doesn't reveal anything relevant about either her character or her motivations.

If you're trying to decide between watching the Spree and any other movie, pick the other movie. Come to think of it, if you're trying to decide whether to watch the Spree or bang your head against the wall for an equivalent 98 minutes, you might want to give serious consideration to the wall.

Powers Boothe and Jennfer Beals both came close becoming stars but just didn't quite make it. Maybe because they were involved with too many "B" movies like this with dumb dialog and a lot of gratuitous sex, although it's obvious they used a stand-in for Beals on the sex scenes.

They play two immoral people and the film tries to make a good person out of Beals near the end, but that was ludicrous since the woman was anything but "good." The best thing the film had going for it were several interesting twists and some good suspense in parts. I'll give it a couple of stars for that, especially the beginning which was very good. Unfortunately, the rest of the film couldn't live up to the exciting opening scene.

Although Tommy Lee Wallace did a decent directing job on "The Spree", there is nothing much content-wise worth watching. Mostly this is due to a weak script that should never have made it into production. The plot and dialog are on the 1940's Saturday matinée serial level, the production design looks more like 1978 than 1998, and the sets are a couple Malibu houses.

The two main cast members in this 1998 feature are has-been sex symbols from 15 years earlier. Although Powers Boothe of "Southern Comfort" fame is believable as the wrapped too tight cop, Jennifer Beals is terribly miscast. She speaks with a NYC accent, looks like Talia Shire, and is dressed in a series of "earthy" outfits from Sears that are unappealing and unsexy. If they were going to cast her in this role they should have rewritten the character to fit her strengths instead of having her play a dowdy white trash character.

"The Spree" was produced for Showtime and justifies the prejudice about movies that are made for cable television.

Admittedly, my admiration for Jennifer Beals inclines me toward finding this film a discovery worth watching and no waste of time. It has a delicious hommage.to Rififi. Beals plays a preternatural criminal genius resembling Michelle Dockery in Good Behavior, and no less well. In the early years, it seems that the powers that be had no idea what to do with Beals. It delighted me to see her get enough to work with at last, in The L Word. It brought Joel 2:25 to mind.