Mulholland Falls

This is the kind of movie where every note is put in lovingly. It's a 1950s crime movie, but with a modern, ironic edge: The cops are just a shade over the top, just slightly in on the joke.

Mulholland Falls deserves more a tip of the hat than an enthusiastic greeting. [26 Apr 1996, p.03]

Mulholland Falls is a period thriller that is distinguished by an excellent cast, even if most of them seem to be outdoing each other in deep gravel voices.

Mulholland Falls is a provocative crime drama with a limp script and a forced feeling. But star Nick Nolte is a ticking time bomb as a brutal Los Angeles police detective with a hulking, gasping sense of pain and meanness. He gives the film an odd, askew tone that keeps it tough and alive.

Chinatown had sex, greed and water, Body Heat had sex, greed and high humidity, while Mulholland Falls has alluded-to sex, hats and cigarettes bundled with radiation sickness and anachronistic pop psychology references. (Palminteri spouts endless Sensitive Guy pabulum that's supposed to be ironic. It's not.) It's a mess and a shame, considering all the talent involved.

Sloppy crime epic.

It's a pretentious, laughable Hollywood-type bomb that touches on police brutality and government cover-ups, but ends up being a movie about hats. [26 Apr 1996, p.54]