The Fish's Eye

Rating: Null/10 (21 December 2001)

Spoilers herein.
De Palma is never about story, nor actors, but about the eye. However, here he has some help in writing and acting that he rarely gets, making this his most accessible and popular picture.
There is no one better than Mamet for this kind of writing. (`This town stinks like a whorehouse at low tide' -- pretty good stuff.) Costner and Connery are relatively weak actors, but this is a good fit for them. (I'm told that Connery's natural Scots accent makes him completely goof the intended Irish.) Deniro hadn't begun his slide into laziness yet. The score is apt as well.
Still, to appreciate this you have to ignore all that, even though it is good enough, and focus on what is excellent -- how the camera moves within the frame. It is not De Palma's best in my mind: `Snake Eyes' is the film that shows his talent most purely. But this is great filmmaking cinematically. Every shot has motion in the camera; often smooth movement that perfectly complements the movement seen. De Palma is the true son of Hitchcock -- Hitch's camera ballet was a major component of the story: who can forget for instance the goodbye Babs shot down the stairs and out the door in `Frenzy.'
De Palma's camera is less bound than Hitch's. It swoops and turns and explores and navigates without gravity which always informed Hitch's eye. De Palma's vision is less intrinsic to the story, but that's the point -- we are detached, swimming angels, not of the world displayed -- not low tide.