Product Details

• Actors: Debra Winger, Mark Keyloun, Darrell Larson, Brooke Alderson, Paul Winfield
• Directors: James Bridges
• Writers: James Bridges
• Producers: Jack Larson, Kim Kurumada
• Format: Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: March 28, 1995
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6300271579
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,480 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #61 in	Video > Drama > Crime & Criminals
  #63 in	Video > Drama > By Genre > Mystery & Thriller

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This film isn't really about Mike (Mark Keyloun), whose fate is revealed by the title, but about Betty (Debra Winger, An Officer and a Gentleman). Mike is the bank teller's blow-dried tennis instructor. They have a bit of a thing for each other. All she knows is that he's cute and that he's a low-level dealer. What she doesn't know is that he's in way over his head. When Mike is murdered, Betty tries to put the pieces together at the same time his drug-addled partner, Pete (Darrell Larson), tries to avoid the same fate. Powerful record producer Phillip (Paul Winfield) helps to fill in the blanks of Mike's mysterious past, but easy answers won't be forthcoming. Revised several times and shelved by the studio until Terms of Endearment re-established Winger's star status, Mike's Murder had a difficult gestation. Despite praise from a few critics, there were others who panned the deliberately paced thriller (some found it confusing, some found it dull), and it was a commercial disappointment. In the decades to come, however, its critical fortunes would slowly begin to turn around. While rarely as compelling as Lawrence Kasdan's steamy Body Heat, which is also set in LA, or Paul Schrader's prickly Light Sleeper, Mike's Murder effectively conjures up a sense of menace. Written and directed by James Bridges (The China Syndrome), Oscar winning composer John Barry (Out of Africa) is behind the moody score, while Night and Day-era Joe Jackson provides a smattering of piano-based pop songs. -- Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

A bank teller falls for a drug dealer. When he is murdered, she teams up with his partner to find the killer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Debra Winger's shining hour, July 12, 2000

By	N.P. Thompson (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

Running neck-in-neck perhaps with her work in Black Widow, this is Ms. Winger's best performance to date. Low-key and a little bit rambling, the movie's portrayal of an ordinary woman's descent into the L.A. drug culture makes you feel uncomfortable and squirmy. I hated the film when I first saw it back in 1985; yet something about it stayed with me, got under my skin, wouldn't let go --until in 1990 I rented the video, and realized "Oh my god, this film is a masterpiece." It's odd, slow and expectation-defiant. Favorite moment: Winger, alone at her piano, hovering over an out-of-tune key because the sound brings back what she liked best about Mike.

Contrary to Mr. Maltin, the late director James Bridges never made a finer movie than this in his all-too-short career.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my all-time faves - a thriller and character study, January 23, 2004

By	L. S. Slaughter "silvanus" (Chapel Hill, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Such an ubderrated film!!! Not to mention the debacle around its 1984 production when the MBA's at Warner made Bridges recut and trim down the violence because some yuppies girls sniffing nosecandy in a Walnut Creek bathroom during screening broke down crying saying things like "How do they expect us to go on after seeing this?!!!" They told Bridges they would not release his film unless he made the young cokeheads feel more safe, so he spent $200,000 to recut and reshoot portions of the (still) remarkable film so that he could give it to us, then, darn it, he up and died a few years later!!!

Anyway, this film has a GREAT score by JOHN BARRY with additional songs by then famous Joe Jackson.

It is an accurate a picture of the seediness of amoral 'I will kill you for money' vibe in L.A. as anything I have ever seen.

There are stellar performances throughout. Winger is simply the best of the 80s here. Mark Keyloun (what happened to him???) shines as goofy, loveable, stupid Mike.

The cinematography (like Body Double of the same year, methinks) captures the numbing glare and seductive light of Los Angeles, the sense of ALWAYS BEING IN A CAR or ON A PHONE and rarely having any direct contact with the people you desire most (isn't that what fuels that place, though?).

Cannot recommend this thriller/character study enough for anyone who enjoys a peek at how the uninitated get destroyed, and how places like L.A. destroy them.

Oh yeah, this film bravely slams everyone equally. It's democratically un-PC.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, May 30, 2006

By	Christopher Gipson "Cradleburns" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Mike's Murder (DVD)

I had to throw my two cents in on what is probably one of the best films I've ever seen. I remember seeing this film late one night, and being glued to the set. While it is a thriller, it also plays well as a character study. Whoever owns the rights to this should put it out ASAP! Included cut footage, and include a documentary about how poorly this film was treated upon it's release. If you can find a copy on video tape, I implore you to give this cool little film a look. You'll be glad you did.