DELUSION(director/writer: Carl Colpaert; screenwriter: Kurt Voss; cinematographer: Geza Sinkovics; editor: Mark Allan Kaplan; music: Barry Adamson; cast: Jim Metzler (George O’Brien), Jennifer Rubin (Patti), Kyle Secor (Chevy), Robert Costanzo (Myron Sales), Jerry Orbach (Larry); Runtime: 100; MPAA Rating: R; producer: Daniel Hassid; IRS Media/RCA; 1991)
“Has some dazzle but not enough staying power.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Belgian-born filmmaker Carl Colpaert’s thriller “Delusion” is a cautionary film noir road movie, that has some dazzle but not enough staying power. Colpaert wrote the script with Kurt Voss and frames it in a bemused gunslinger style with no point of view except, perhaps, as a warning not to pick up hitch-hikers. It features a nondescript yuppie computer executive Jim Metzler, who embezzles half a million bucks by creatively cooking the books during a recent takeover of the company he works for and heads by car across the desert to Reno. Metzler felt betrayed by the company selling out and leaving him high and dry after working there for five years, and now plans to open his own firm in Reno. Thinking he’s got it made in the shade, he confidently picks up good-looking showgirl Jennifer Rubin and manic boyfriend Kyle Secor after their car crashed. But that turns out to be a big mistake. Secor is a contract killer with the annoying habit of making small talk and swigging on Pepto-Bismol, who is on his way to make a hit on fellow gangster Jerry Orbach. With no time to lose he kidnaps George and carries out the hit, and leaves him for dead in the desert because he wants no witnesses. Secor steals his Volvo, but is unaware of the fortune stashed in the tire well. It leads to the still living Metzler itching to retrieve the money and get revenge on Secor, as he gets into a shootout with him at Death Valley Junction–in a scene derivative of the way they do it in those B-movie Westerns.

The film can’t get you emotionally involved in the characters, but it had enough bizarre moments to make it watchable. But overall it was just as tedious as Secor’s ingratiating small talk. Jennifer Rubin’s part calls for her to be used for her physical beauty and it requires her to do little but go along for the ride. The film sways back and forth between its uninvolving storyline and kitsch.

REVIEWED ON 1/22/2004 GRADE: C+

Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”

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