Heaven's Prisoners (1996) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Actually, that's not completely accurate. It did start out as some kind of Southern Gothic Noir, but it ended up being a revenge film, ala Death Wish. Alec Baldwin spent the last 67 minutes of this film tracking down and killing the three guys who killed his wife. The problem is that it took 63 minutes to get his wife killed in the first place. The two halves of the movie are related to one another, but not very directly. The first half is a complicated story about a reformed alcoholic (Baldwin), a retired policeman who was running a small fishing resort in the bayou when he and his wife saw a small plane crash near their boat. They dragged a little girl from the plane. The DEA showed up. Hit men showed up. More hit men showed up. Baldwin got beat up a few times. He beat up a few guys up in revenge. The baddies showed up to get counter-revenge, snuck into his house, and riddled his bed with automatic weapon fire. Baldwin was not in bed, and the baddies killed his wife instead of him. Then Alec really got steamed, as you might imagine. He started hitting the bottle again. Old girlfriends showed up. He informally adopted the little girl from the airplane. Then he plotted a systematic revenge. At first the trail led to a conclusion that whole anti-Baldwin plot was masterminded by Baldwin's childhood friend turned bad guy (Eric Roberts). Or maybe Eric was just a puppet for some Northeastern Mafia guys who thought their partnership with Mr. Roberts was becoming too public. Or maybe Eric's wife (Teri Hatcher) was more than she seemed to be. Then there was a stripper with a heart of gold, a voodoo priest, and I don't know what else.

The plot rambles, to say the least.

Frankly, I was lost for a while in the first half of the film. Baldwin's problems all started because the DEA agent came out to talk to him, but I can't for the life of me figure out why the DEA made that visit in the first place. The agent told Baldwin to stay out of DEA business, but there was no reason to think Baldwin wanted to get mixed up in any shady business of any kind, on either side. He was just living a pastoral existence with his pet ducks and his fishing boats, and he and his wife were deliriously happy minding their own business.

As the story progressed, I couldn't figure out who was working for whom, or how people knew to be where they were when they got there. There was a surprise ending about 70 minutes later which explained most of the cases where I (and Baldwin's character) had been confused, but by that point I had forgotten about the mystery and was watching what was essentially another movie - the Charles Bronson portion of the entertainment in which Baldwin hunted down the three killers while trying to find out who ordered them to make the hit.

This movie is a cliché in the celebrity nudity racket. Every time I tell people what I do (which is not often, to be honest), they ask me, "why did Teri Hatcher do that balcony scene?" First question. Never fails. I have gotten tired of talking about it over the years, but it is a good question. Hatcher was considered one of the sexiest women on the planet in the mid 90s. She looks fantastic with her clothes on - slim-hipped and darkly exotic, ideal for leather or sultry mystery, but easily convertible to the girl next door as well. What guys always say to me is, "I thought she was so hot until I saw her topless, then my desire deflated completely". For some women, nude scenes can be a great career move, providing a much-needed image transformation or a giant leap in their recognition factor. For Hatcher, to the contrary, the nude scene was the wrong decision, the destruction of a magnificent illusion. I don't know why she agreed to do such a straightforward scene in bright daylight, but it was not the right career move, because it showed off her body too clearly. Her breasts aren't ugly, by any means, but she looks totally, completely ordinary between her waist and neck, no better than most of our wives. Before she did the balcony scene she was a goddess. Goddesses cannot afford to be ordinary.

Sidebar: "Cheers" argument fodder. Add this to the "sweatiest movie" debate, along with the greats like Cool Hand Luke. Alec Baldwin is drenched in sweat or rain or both from start to finish.