Cutter-2

The first and, in my humble opinion, the best of the three Joel & Garda Sloane mysteries. Others have compared the three "Fast" movies to The Thin Man series. Its only real similarity is the snappy exchanges between husband and wife. Joel is gainfully employed with his own rare books business and well known locally as an expert in the field. Garda works with him. Neither Nick or Nora did much other than live off of Nora's inheritance. I particularly enjoyed Florence Rice more in the Garda role than either Ann Sothern or Rosiland Russell. She is fairly rarely the butt of Joel's "jokes" like Nora is. Douglas and Rice are a little more "down to earth" than the other two couples.

If you are a mystery series fan this is well worth the hour and ten minutes and much better than most of the '30s and '40s mystery series. Don't expect to be culturally enriched but you will be entertained.

Technology has advanced to the point where the "twins" can easily be shown together (and much more often than the original) without the "overlay" being apparent which makes the film more believable than the original. Both Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson play "softer" characters than Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith which makes their love for their children more believable and Richardson has a natural smile that can only be described as infectious. Elaine Hendrix is the woman you love to hate as the "other woman" and I especially enjoyed how both Nick and Elizabeth's hired household help mirrored their lifestyles and personalities. And finally, Lindsay Lohan did an excellent job of playing two entirely different people at the beginning of the movie but as they become more familiar with each other their personalities merge to one as you would expect with twins.

In my opinion today's comedies are not that "funny" but the last 30 minutes of this movie after Nick and Elizabeth meet for the first time in 11 years is as funny as anything I have seen in quite some time. The hike to the campsite and the time they spend at the campsite was possibly funniest 5 to 7 minutes of a movie I have seen in the last 15 years. This is one of the few non-animated movies Disney has done in quite some time that they felt comfortable associating their name with as opposed slapping the Touchstone label on. However, this movie can also be both very touching and very hurtful at points if you are a divorced parent of a young child. You may want to think about letting your child see this because it could build their hopes up.