The Intruder (1999/I)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

David Bailey

Writers:

Jamie Brown (writer)
Brooke Leimas (novel)

Release Date:

19 November 1999 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Plot:

Catherine meets Nick by accident and, after a whirlwind romance, the two get married and Catherine moves...

Plot Keywords:

Apartment | Shower Scene | Lipstick On Wine Glass | Snow | Ghost

Cast

Charlotte Gainsbourg	...	Catherine Girard
Charles Edwin Powell	...	Nick Girard (as Charles Powell)
Nastassja Kinski	...	Badge Muller
Molly Parker	...	Daisy
John Hannah	...	Charlie
Charles Papasoff	...	Saxophonist
Marianne Farley	...	Stella / Nancy Brooke (as Marianne Therien)
Mike Tsar	...	Detective Fordham
Angelo Tsarouchas	...	Leiberman
Janis Kershner	...	Policewoman (as Janis Kirshner)
David McKeown	...	Mugger
John Dunn-Hill	...	Doctor
Tony Robinow	...	Maintenance Man
Candace Frazier	...	Twin
Cynthia Frazier	...	Twin

Runtime:

Argentina:90 min | France:90 min | UK:94 min | Portugal:90 min (cut version)

Country:

UK | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | France:U | Germany:12 | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Montréal, Québec, Canada

Company:

GFT Kingsborough Films

Worthwhile little thriller

A man (Charles Powell) and woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg)meet after the latter is the victim of a purse snatching. They quickly fall in love and decide to marry. Before the marriage, however, the girl shoots a female intruder that has broken into their house. Strangely, the intruder looks just like her new fiancé's former girlfriend who was herself shot and fatally wounded by an intruder in the same house several years earlier. It quickly becomes unclear who the real "intruder" is.

I have to confess that I would watch the lovely French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg trimming her nose hairs for two hours, and here she demonstrates her usual inability to keep all her clothes on for an entire movie (a trait inherited perhaps from her equally yummy Britsh mummy Jane Birkin, who did the first full-frontal nude scene in a mainstream movie with "Blow Up" in 1966). This is actually a pretty interesting and entertaining movie though. It's hard to say too much about it without giving away the major plot points, but suffice it to say that while this movie seems to start out as a typical lame erotic thriller, it takes some interesting metaphysical turns. It's a little too ambitious for its own good perhaps, but that's a lot better than most of these kind of movies which usually don't have an original thought in their head.

The acting is also quite good, especially some of the supporting cast like British thesp. John Hannah, cult fave Molly Parker, and even Natassia Kinski in an extended cameo(thus you have the sexy daughters of the two most infamous rakes in Europe, Serg Gainsbourg and Klaus Kinski, together in one movie).

I don't want to rave unreservedly about this perhaps, but it certainly is a worthwhile little thriller.