Palmetto
with Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Shue, Gina Gershon, Chloe Sevigny, Michael Rappaport
Written by E Max Frye
Directed by Volker Schlondorff
(Castle Rock)
by Celine Hania
What’s it called when you have an excellent script, nice cinematography, a couple of hot women, and a writer/ex con? Palmetto. Why this film flopped in the theaters is beyond me. I held no expectations, yet watched completely enthralled as the plot twisted and fell for the ride just as Harry Barber (Harrelson) did.
“There’s nothing worse than a writer who has nothing to say,” Barber says in his cell. Harry Barber just got out of jail and he’s pissed. As the movie progresses and he gets involved in a cheap scam, we discover he’s essentially a journalist, not a criminal. He simply wrote something he “shouldn’t have” and got screwed by the system because of it. And when your protagonist is basically a good guy involved in a crime only to fulfill a need to get something back, you just root for him more. But Harry doesn’t know what he’s doing. He buys Elizabeth Shue’s sexy, slutty act (can you blame the guy?) only to get suckered in deeper. All he has to do is stage a bogus kidnapping, collect the measly half million, take his 10%, and go home. But what do you do when a murder gets pinned on you? You cry to your girlfriend (Gina Gershon). But it’s still not that simple. Harry is involved in the crime as well as being the police press liaison.
The set up of the film is the reason why the story works. As each clue is given for the audience to nibble on, the plot takes yet another turn – we never know more than Harry does. This suspenseful feast is also linked with themes. In the beginning, we see Harry order a shot of bourbon, sniff it, but not drink it. At plot point two when he’s at his lowest and everything has gone completely wrong, that shot of bourbon tastes pretty good. And when his girlfriend questions the half-empty bottle, he replies “I mean, a guy’s entitled to a drink every once in a while.” When she counters with “You’re the one who said it affected your judgment,” he doesn’t miss a beat in answering, “Yeah, well, I was wrong. My judgment’s as bad as it ever was.” There are so many good, realistic lines like this. When he asks the kidnappee (Chloe Sevigny) whether she’s ever seen the inside of a jail cell and she replies “On TV,” his response is “Yeah, they make it look pretty on TV.”
If you don’t care much for content but wonder when you’re going to see some nudity, there are some pretty good sex scenes with that cheesy porn jazz playing in the background. These scenes are more effective because they’re not straight up sex, but have some really nice subtly. The dark humor that creeps in every so often, the use of the Florida swamp town with lots of rain, wind, and sunsets, not to mention the fact that nothing is ever what it seems, especially when dealing with sex, scandal, and murder, is the essence of Palmetto.
