Jennifer 8 [1992]

Slick and pacey, Jennifer 8 throws out so many plot that it eventually winds up falling over them in its haste to get to the overblown climax. Nothing here makes a great deal of sense and yet, despite its inherent cosmic silliness, Robinson handles the suspense-and-relief routine with a flashy aplomb, and the cast do well in the face of the material's shortcomings. (John Malkovich's brief appearance is a redemptive highlight, even if you do have to wait almost 90 minutes for it). --Danny Leigh

The other scene I found particularly memorable was the moment where Garcia (under suspicion of murdering his best friend) is with his widow. She does not suspect him but at the same time rejects him and he grabs her in an explosively emotional hug. It is about the power of touching for comfort and has nothing to do with sex, although have to admit it is at the same time incredibly sexy (to me anyway).

The tension works. The psychology of the relationship between Garcia & Thurman doesn't.

I suppose I can see why this doesn't rate as one of the top thrillers since it is a bit uneven - but if you didn't catch it first time around I thoroughly recommend it for something a little bit different.


Bruce is still a master...   January 16, 2001
The actors are in total symbiosis and with lines like....(god): "I don't listen to peoples prayers, they're junk mail!".....the movie is still a hit. A must see for Withnail fans.


Unjustly ignored.   May 4, 2001
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Unfairly ignored on its release and cut by 30 minutes by the studio this is an interesting but flawed serial killer movie from Britains best sreenwriter. Great performances and an atmospheric setting and sparkeling dialogue didn't help this movie on release because the overrated silence of the lambs was released around the same time. I wish someone would release a directors cut and give Bruce Robinson some money to make another film soon.


Standard issue of flawed semi-classic   December 6, 2002
Jason Parkes (Worcester, UK)
7 out of 12 found this review helpful

As readers of the excellent collection of interviews with Bruce Robinson (Smoking in Bed) will note- this film is incomplete. This was due to studio intervention, who typically wanted the running time reduced by twenty-minutes to get to that 2-hour mark (despite the fact that many box-office successes and/or classics frequently step over this mark- e.g. The Godfather, Titanic, Harry Potter, Schindler's List etc). This is the kind of thinking that made films like Hannibal so empty...

...Robinson doesn't appear to have any interest in putting together this butchered film- so Jennifer 8 will always be flawed; a could-have been...Conrad Hall (American Beauty, The Road to Perdition) contributes stunning photography- many scenes pre-date the look of things like The X Files, Se7en(the constant rain) and the severely average remake of Insomnia. The bath/flashbulb scene is particularly excellent, a neo-noir take on films like Peeping Tom & Psycho. Other great scenes are the one in the diner regarding Berlin's dream of God (up there with films like Homicide & Pulp Fiction in terms of dialogue)& the interogation scene with John Malkovich (whose theatrical presence works here- whereas in many films it seems rather hammy). Pity that the 90-second staring match between Garcia & Malkovich was excised; still- very potent stuff.

Another problem of the film lies in the casting, Robinson had wanted a then out of favour Al Pacino to star as the recovering alcoholic divorcee- but was forced to take a rising Andy Garcia (who is now just reaching the age where he would be suited to this). Garcia gives a very good performance- I wonder if the moniker Berlin alludes to a troubled past and new start (i.e. the fall of the Berlin Wall a few years before this film)- probably just me being anal...Lance Henriksen, Kathy Baker & the other more unfamiliar actors give sterling performances- Uma Thurman is wonderful here- a key performance that ranks next to Joan Allen in Manhunter (1986).

The denoument of the film is woeful, Berlin never arriving to save the day makes little sense and the final scene (I Remember Red) was just an out-take tacked on- would have been nice to see the original ending where you discover Taylor has a bullet-proof vest and Baker hasn't killed him...

Jennifer 8 is worth watching, though the final third drags and the final scenes are mostly an insult to anyone with any intelligence- they should have been like Silence of the Lambs or Manhunter tension-wise. Fingers crossed for a 'directors'- cut!


A good idea marred by a slightly mumbled plot...   August 23, 2004
1 out of 6 found this review helpful

Robinson once famously declared that he only sits down to write after his second bottle of red wine. Is JENNIFER 8 just the rambling, under-developed ideas of a drunk or a structured, multi-layer suspense thriller with many variables in play? I'm inclined to take a little from column A but the rest from column B.

There seem to be bits of "convenient" writing here, and Thurman stumbles about as if, rather than being blind since 14, it happened that very afternoon. Some plot points simply fizzle out. Where we suppoesed to conveniently forget the clues on the rubbish dump? There's so little character development that we're left not caring that the small town cops seem like mere automatons that jump to the right conclusions and don't want to tackle difficult cases like this when it seems, by the script, that the murder is really rather easy to solve.

A number of times during this film, I even wondered if blind people ever lock their institutes! It would solve a lot of problems, it seems.

On the whole, it's a good rainy afternoon film but it could have been done so much better in the same 120 minutes.