Wed 25 Apr 2018
SHATTERED. MGM, 1991. Tom Berenger, Bob Hoskins, Greta Scacchi, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Corbin Bernsen. Screenplay: Wolfgang Petersen, based on the novel The Plastic Nightmare (Ace, 1969), by Richard Neely. Director: Wolfgang Petersen.
I missed this one when it first came out, but I read the book, and it knocked my socks off. The movie’s just as good, I think, and based on reading the reviews and comments you can find on IMDb now, the twist at the end has apparently knocked the socks off everyone who’s seen at as well.
But not always in a good way. Some have gone so far as to point out that the twist at the end simply doesn’t make any sense, and to tell you the truth, they’re not so very far from wrong. This is the kind of twist, though, that a reviewer can’t talk about without revealing the whole point of the movie, not without spoiler warnings, and I’ve decided not to do that, in case you haven’t seen the movie and there’s a more than even chance that someday you will.
And I think you should.
Here’s the basic story, though. As it so happens very often at the beginning of many a noir or neo-nour movie, a car goes off a cliff with two people inside, a husband and wife. Miraculously both survive, she with barely a scratch, he with severe injuries, including massive overall body trauma. She nurses him back to health, with the aid of hordes or doctors and surgeons.
Unfortunately, he has a certain kind of amnesia that affects only his personal memories. He know how to do everyday kinds of things, but he can’t remember anything personal about himself nor about the people he should know, including his wife, his job, his colleagues, his friends. Nothing.
All seems well, though, until certain incongruent details start coming to the surface. Their marriage, he is reluctantly told, was on the rocks. She was suspected of having an affair, they were constantly fighting, and he himself may have had a thing with his partner’s wife.
He even discovers that he had hired a private detective (Bob Hoskins) to spy on his wife, and he tells the husband that perhaps that perhaps the accident was no accident at all.
There you have it. Complicated? In a word, yes, but I *think* the details fit the ending. I will have to go back and watch this movie again to see. This is a handsome production and getting to the ending is fine — fun, in fact. But in the end it’s the ending that will make or break how you feel about this movie. If you can swallow it, you’re fine. Otherwise, not.
April 25th, 2018 at 12:54 pm
I think I watched the movie, then went back and read the book.
April 25th, 2018 at 8:29 pm
I’ll have to go back and read the book again myself. For a while Richard Neely was known as a real whiz at this kind of story.
April 25th, 2018 at 8:04 pm
Steve, Second paragraph it should read “of” not “os”
April 25th, 2018 at 8:28 pm
Not the only error, Randy. Not only the one you spotted, but a couple of others. I have them all fixed now, however, and I am the only one who will ever know. And I won’t remember for long!
April 25th, 2018 at 8:12 pm
Neely wrote FreeTime suspense novels, and this one translates into a great neo noir film, full of twists, turns, and appropriate shocks, and tightly scripted and plotted as well.
Yes, it may let down a little, but Cornell Woolrich often played fast and loose too. So long as logic doesn’t come out of left field I’m usually forgiving.
And Berenger, Hoskins, and Sacchi are outstanding here.
April 25th, 2018 at 8:32 pm
With a twist at the end as outrageous as this one, performances such as by these three are absolutely crucial.
April 25th, 2018 at 10:52 pm
As I recall, the Bob Hoskins character was not in the book — Do I remember right? Whatever the case, he’s a high point of the film.
April 27th, 2018 at 9:27 pm
I’ve been hoping someone would come along to answer your question, Dan, since I can’t. I just don’t remember.
I have found a review that Ed Gorman did of the book. He liked it.
And it’s still online here:
http://newimprovedgorman.blogspot.com/2016/05/forgotten-books-plastic-nightmare-by.html
May 2nd, 2018 at 7:05 am
I was a big Scacchi fan, as well as generally a lover of suspense films, when the film came out, and remember finding it disappointing…but haven’t seen it since n the cinema, so don’t remember how it disappointed me…and after reading Ed’s review some years back, I read THE PLASTIC NIGHTMARE, and don’t remember the novel clearly enough either (not as good as THE WALTER SYNDROME, not as bad a cheat tiwist as THE JAPANESE MISTRESS)…hm.
May 2nd, 2018 at 11:00 am
I suspect the fetching from quite far away was the problem with SHATTERED.