Customer Reviews

Kleptomania [VHS]

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This is a low thrills thriller from writer/director Don Boyd, only distinguishable by the performances of Amy Irving as a rich bored alcoholic bulemic kleptomaniac, Victor Garber in an all too rare acting role as Amy's husband, and Patsy Kensit as a streetwoman whom Amy befriends. Casting Amy and Victor as a married couple is an aural delight since both have beautifully resonant voices. Call me perverse but seeing Amy dressed to the nines, thoughts of the settlement from her marriage to Steven Spielberg came to mind, though it seems Boyd glams her up so we can see her status ravaged. It's also not fun when she masturbates with a stolen necklace, and then runs it through her lips. You can tell when a writer/director opens with a rape/murder that delicacy isn't going to be a strong element of his auteur. Amy also has a bizarre scene where she drunkenly speaks from a church pulpit, to the audience of her limo driver. I wondered where the priests were! Kensit's role is the lesser one, as the world-weary put-upon waif, though she is direct and funny in her reactions to Irving. Boyd doesn't seem to be worried when in the scene where Patsy teaches Amy how to steal from a subway crowd, extras can clearly see what Amy is doing. I guess it only proves how heartless New York is. He coats his film with annoying country and western ballads, which tell us the meaning of what we are seeing, as if we are so dim it needs explaination, and is fond of a tilted camera, I guess to show how "unbalanced" Irving's character and Kensit's underground underworlds are. And the smug ending, accompanied by appropriate C&W song, is unforgiveable.

This movie sadly flounders without a believable script or storyline. Somehow we are supposed to believe that Amy Irving who plays a rich, spoiled , bulemic, vodka swilling Socialite who likes to masturbate at dinner parties would be able to have a friendship with a street wise homeless thief played by Patsy Kensit.For 1 1/2 hours we see Amy's Character slumming with Patsy Kensit in order to get some "cheap thrills" from life on the street. Ms. Irving's character gets arrested for shoplifting and she calls Patsy to come up with $500 to bail her out which Ms. Kensit does. Give me a break. Any street person who suddenly has $500 would inject it into their arms or buy some good Chivas Regal Scotch for a change instead of Cheap Wine.Also it is never made clear if the guys Ms. Kensit's character is having sex with are pimps or Priests? This movie is solely redeemed by Ms. Kensit's very hard hitting and gritty realistic performance as a street person willing to do anything that she has to in order to survive.