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From: leeper@mtgzx.att.com (Mark R. Leeper)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: SEA OF LOVE
Summary: r.a.m.r. #00625
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Date: 22 Sep 89 16:56:17 GMT
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				 SEA OF LOVE
		       A film review by Mark R. Leeper
			Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper

	  Capsule review:  Steamy love story crossed with a tepid
     police procedural mystery.  The plot may have been intended
     to be clever but fails somehow to have anything very
     unexpected.  There are problems in continuity, casting, and
     plotting.  Rating: low +1.

     There is a serial killer in New York City.  Somebody seems to be
answering all the rhyming ads men put in the personals columns and killing
the men placing the ads.  Twenty-year veteran police detective Frank Keller
(played by Al Pacino) teams up with Sherman (played by John Goodman).  Frank
and Sherman decide that the fastest way to catch the killer is to place
their own personals ad and plan rendezvous with the thirty or so women who
respond to the ad.  By getting the fingerprints of each, they hope to get a
match with the fingerprints found at the scenes of the murders.  One woman
who responds is the tall, slim, and sensuous Helen (played by Ellen Barkin).
Frank fails to get Helen's fingerprints, but runs into her again and they
become lovers.  Now here is one failing of the plot.  Frank is ambivalent on
finding out if Helen is connected with the murders, but on those days he is
curious he is willing to steal her Social Security card but not to take her
fingerprints.  Frank is expert enough to recognize if two prints match, but
he never bothers to compare.

     Pacino's character is one heck of a policeman.  He is an alcoholic, he
has a chip on his shoulder, and he is a slob.  Even worse, he garbles his
lines so they are almost incomprehensible.  Barkin makes all the right moves
to play a really sexy woman, but somehow she never makes it all the way to
actually being sexy.  Still, her love scenes are sufficiently steamy to keep
the audience staring closely at the screen.  Rounding out the cast is the
now familiar John Goodman.  Goodman has a big St.  Bernardish look but is
likable as the wise-cracking partner.  Also on hand is William Hickey
playing Pacino's father.  Hickey looks and talks like Pacino much more than
some other actors who could have been cast in the role such as Jay
Silverheels or Toshiro Mifune.

     While this film has been likened by some to BODY HEAT, the story is
really just an okay police procedural about the catching of a killer.  While
the dialogue is often quite funny, particularly in the byplay of the two
partners, the script is overall just mediocre.  The plot is just not very
clever or intricate, and needs a few more twists to keep up audience
interest.  I rate this one a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

					Mark R. Leeper
					att!mtgzx!leeper
					leeper@mtgzx.att.com