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Year:   2000
Studio: Sony Picture Classics
Movie:  2/5
DVD:    3/5

Trixie is an indie film. That there says a lot. It is about Trixie (Emily Watson), a wannabe private investigator with a Chicago accent and a bad habit of missaying words. Trixie is a down to earth girl who gets involved with bad boy Dexter (Dermot Mulroney), his boss Red Rafferty (Will Patton), state senator Drummond Avery (Nick Nolte), Rafferty's girlfriend Dawn (Lesley Ann Warren), and fellow coworkers at the casino Kirl (Nathan Lane) and Ruby (Brittany Murphy).

This is a good cast, especially for an indie film. As such, the acting is very good. The story is a murder mystery and the plot is fairly well done. The movie itself drags on in certain places. The soundtrack is has this really annoying organ music to fill a certain mood which I'm not too sure what it is because I'm so annoyed.

There are a couple cool scenes. One is when Trixie and Dawn are talking in her hotel room. There are these three mirrors and the actors move just right to move one mirror to the next as the camera is also slowly moving. Nice effect.

The other scene is when Ruby is jerking off Senator Avery at a gentleman's club while the Senator is talking to a couple of lobbyists. It's actually pretty sexy with Britanny Murphy sort of jiggling around and Nick Nolte acting like he's got something else on his mind.
Emily Watson has a really nice role. It's a quirky character with a definite accent. And all the aphorisms and idioms that the character butchers. It's almost funny at times. And that's one of the main problems of the movie. It just doesn't quite entertain. The funny moments are not really funny. The relationship moments are not really romantic. The film noir is not working for this movie.

Actually I didn't like Trixie. She comes off as not too smart. Not just from her misspeaking everything. She really comes off as someone who is way out of her league, which I guess is intended but not what I usually look for in a protagonist detective. Watching this movie I didn't care about her.

The commentary track is with director (and co-writer) Alan Rudolph. It's an ok commentary, not particularly good or bad.


Copyright (c) 2004 Kevin C. Wong
Page Created: September 19, 2004 Page Last Updated: September 19, 2004