Flesh and Bone

Hardly a barrel of laughs then, but this slowburn tale sears its way onto the synapses and then flat refuses to budge.

On the whole, Flesh and Bone is effectively clean and mean. [05 Nov 1993, p.10E]

Flesh and Bone is all suspenseful buildup without shoot-outs, chases, and explosions, and its conclusion doesn't demand a neatly-packaged resolution. More importantly, it's one of the few successful '40s-type noir thrillers to grace the big screen in recent years.

Dennis Quaid gives what may be his best performance in the stylish thriller Flesh and Bone, but the movie around him is so cold, quirky and ploddingly predictable that it's hard to recommend. [05 Nov 1993]

Kloves has taken us on one more ride down this same old Texas highway, with its cheap motels and gloomy cowboys. Ain't much more to it than that.

The past traps the present, fate smothers spontaneity, and all of the dialog sounds like Dialog - not what people would say, but what characters would say. The film is depressing for some of the right reasons, and all of the wrong ones.

The actors are so impressed by the seriousness of their dialogue that they respectfully wait a minute or so after each line is spoken before speaking the next one. Remove the pauses and the movie would run about 20 minutes. [12 Nov 1993, p.20]