Her Alibi

Her Alibi (1989) directed by Bruce Beresford, is a very funny, but totally predictable, murder mystery. Tom Selleck plays Phil Blackwood, a mystery writer whose stories are as predictable as the film's plot. Phil has run out of creative steam and his reputation is diminishing.

Paulina Porizkova plays Nina, who is a beautiful (very) Romanian who may or may not be a murderer.

From the moment Phil sees Nina, we can guess where the movie is going. In other words, Her Alibi isn't really a mystery. What makes the film enjoyable isn't the plot, but the technique Beresford utilizes. We see a scene, and hear Selleck's voice- over as he writes the scene into his novel. Of course, what we see and what we hear are two totally different versions of reality. The contrast really is very funny.

William Daniels does well as Sam, Selleck's long-suffering publisher. Porizkova can't act, but nobody will notice. Selleck plays Selleck.

If you want to see fine film-making, rent Beresford's Breaker Morant. If you want to laugh at a film with no social significance at all, rent Her Alibi.

Tom Selleck is the titular character, "her alibi," who provides a beautiful murder suspect with a false alibi because he believes she is innocent. However, once he brings her back to his house, he begins to believe perhaps he was wrong - and now she is trying to murder him so that he cannot go back on his word.

Selleck's character also happens to be a mystery writer of cheap paperback books so he uses what's happening in his life as a parallel to his story, so at moments throughout the film we hear voice-overs of the story being narrated and it's played for comedy (example: Selleck makes a lot of noise while spying on the murder suspect, then in voice-over he reads a line from the book he's writing and says that the character in the book "quietly snuck up on the girl.").

Not a great movie, but it will entertain you.

Going into this film, I didn't think it was going to be all that funny. Was I wrong! This has a lot of laughs esp. the scenes with the bow and arrow and the dinner Nina cooks for Phil's family. If you feel like having a good laugh, then watch this. It won't be a waste of time.

Though not a masterpiece of film-making, HER ALIBI makes for a pleasant change from the violent films that Hollywood keeps on churning out. Tom Selleck and model-cum-actress Paulina Porizkova generate some genuine sparks on-screen in this lighthearted comedy/mystery. Selleck does well in the role of a once-popular mystery writer, while Porizkova, better known for her model-perfect looks, satisfies as the mysterious foreigner who captures the heart of Selleck.

Always likable Tom Selleck is well cast as a mediocre mystery writer (VERY mediocre, based on the samples of his writing we get in the voice-over narrations, which are one of the funniest parts of the movie). He's looking for a plot for his next book and finding it in the person of a beautiful Romanian college student (Paulina Porizkova) who seems to be hiding some big secret. The movie plays like the plot of a bad detective book, with perceptions of the female character shifting from dangerous to trustworthy to suspicious and back. The chemistry between the characters works very well romantically as both characters begin to fall in love despite being wary and suspicious of the various goings-on, and the Romanian KGB agents on Paulina's trail make for useful comic villains.