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COLOR OF NIGHT
Rating: 
USA. 1994.
Director – Richard Rush, Screenplay – Matthew Chapman & Billy Ray, Story – Ray, Producers – Buzz Feitshans & David Matalon, Photography – Dietrich Lohmann, Music – Dominic Frontiere, Visual Effects – Digital Domain, Special Effects Supervisor – Terry King, Makeup – Michelle Burke, Production Design – James L. Schoppe. Production Company – Hollywood Pictures/Andrew Vajna.
Cast:
Bruce Willis (Dr Bill Capa), Jane March (Rose/Bonnie/Richie Dexter), Ruben Blades (Lieutenant Hector Martinez), Lesley Ann Warren (Sondra Dorrio), Brad Dourif (Clark), Scott Bakula (Dr Bob Moore), Kevin J. O’Connor (Casey Hines), Lance Henriksen (Buck), Andrew Lowery (Dale Dexter), Kathleen Wilhoite (Michelle), Eriq La Salle (Officer Anderson), Shirley Knight (Mrs Needlemeyer)
Plot: Psychologist Bill Capa is shocked when a callous comment he makes causes one of his patients to jump out his office window. The shock of it leaves him psychologically colour-blind, he no longer able to see the red colour of her blood. He quits his practice and moves to California, going to stay with a psychologist friend Bob Moore. Moore tells Capa that he has been receiving death threats and is then stabbed to death in his office. The investigating detective persuades Capa to deliver notice of the murder to Moore’s encounter group. The patients however convince Capa to take over and lead the group. But then Capa meets a beautiful young woman Rose and they engage in steamy sex, although she remains mysterious about her identity. At the same time, each of the patients in the group start to discover intense sexual relationships. But at the same time someone is also stalking and killing each of them.
Color of Night came at a point when it seemed anything that Bruce Willis did – The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Hudson Hawk (1991), The Last Boy Scout (1991), Billy Bathgate (1991), Striking Distance (1993) – drew scathing criticism from critics and public alike. (Although in truth several of these films – at least The Last Boy Scout and Billy Bathgate – are not at all bad. One even has a guilty liking for Hudson Hawk). Color of Night received an absolute pillorying from critics and audiences alike. There was even the rather funny story of two fans who met Willis in the street and demanded their money back after seeing this film – and moreover received it too.
Color of Night is a blatant steal from Basic Instinct (1992), a psycho-thriller that similarly features a good deal of steamy sex. The film at least starts out doing an okay job of revealing the essential mystery in the story. And there is a good deal of heated sex (featuring copious full frontal nudity on both party’s parts) between Bruce Willis and the luscious Jane March, then hot from her debut in Jean-Jacques Annaud’s beautifully sensual The Lover (1992). (Although the relationship does feature an improbable romance between 21 year-old March and Willis who was nearly twice her age).
But unfortunately it is the absurd contrivation of the scripts that does the film in. There is one moment in the film where Ruben Blades’s detective addresses the therapy group and incredulously exclaims, “You were all going out with the same woman and didn’t realize it?” which, unfortunately for the audience, puts its finger exactly on the potential absurdity that has been bubbling away beneath the film. And from there on with its increasingly absurd contrivations about multiple personalities, girls impersonating their dead brother and psychotic siblings the film has no hope at all of regaining its credibility. March to her credit at least does an okay job fooling everybody about all the multiple identities for the greater part of the running time. The opening scene with Kathleen Wilhoite painting her mouth with red lipstick and then sucking on a gun barrel makes the audience laugh out loud – it’s not a good omen when a film does this in the opening moments.
The film was directed by Richard Rush, who had directed and written the great The Stunt Man (1980). This was the first film Rush had directed in fourteen years. It is hard to guess what went wrong here – the difference between the two films in terms of intelligence of script is poles apart.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1995
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