Inspired by classic film noir, Carson Phillips, an ex-football star turned PI, has a soft spot for a lady in distress.
Set in the late 1970s, John Travolta plays Carson Philips, a down-on-his-luck private eye who lives and works in the Los Angeles area. One morning, a beautiful woman, Mrs. Johnson (Julie Lott), visits him in his office and asks him to take on a case that involves the woman’s wealthy aunt who years earlier, had been admitted to a mental asylum and whom she has not been able to get a hold since. When she states that the asylum is in Galveston, Texas, Carson is very hesitant to accept the case as he was born and raised there and managed to leave it behind as a distant memory over twenty years ago. Of course, he has a weakness for beautiful women, especially one with an open checkbook and so he accepts the assignment.
Once back in Galveston, he meets old faces from his past, including Doc (Morgan Freeman), the man who owns the town, Chief Walsh (Robert Patrick), and his old flame, Jayne (Famke Janssen). When Carson visits the town asylum where he plans on meeting Mrs. Johnson’s eccentric old aunt, he is instead introduced to Dr. Miles Mitchell (Brendan Fraser), the man in charge who proceeds to tell Carson that she is unavailable. Carson states that he will come back again and later that evening, he hears on the local radio that the town’s star quarterback, died during a game. When the quarterback’s wife, Rebecca (Ella Bleu Travolta), is named as the chief suspect, Carson’s old flame, Jayne, hires him to watch over her daughter, Rebecca.
As Carson begins to get familiar with his old haunt and starts making progress in both the case of Mrs. Johnson and that of Jayne and Rebecca, men start shooting at him, he receives death threats daily, and Doc offers him a nice payday to leave town and never come back. Tempted by the offer, Carson starts to think outside of himself and develops a conscience for the good people caught up in this web of lies and deceit and passes on Doc’s offer. As he digs deeper and deeper, alliances he once had, turn their backs on him and when he receives some unexpected news that stems from his own past, he must decide what is best for him, and the truth that lays buried somewhere in Galveston.
About halfway through the movie, we are introduced to secondary characters that serve no other purpose than to move the plot forward but in the end, the narrative here isn’t what’s really important, instead, we enjoy watching screen icons such as John Travolta, Morgan Freeman, Famke Janssen, Brendan Fraser, and Robert Patrick interact with other, amidst a sweltering Texas backdrop accompanied by a smorgasbord of Southern accents, some good, some not so good. Travolta does his best Philip Marlowe interpretation, bolstered by the obligatory audio commentary that apprises us of Carson’s past, present, and future. Morgan Freeman appears intermittently, just to remind us that he’s a part of the film but the standout is Brendan Fraser. Known for his heroics in action movies like “The Mummy” and his comedic chops in “Encino Man” and “Airheads,” here, he excels and is almost unrecognizable as an overweight, gay, sleazy doctor who has a dark secret that is about to be unearthed by Carson Philips.
The film amounts to nothing more than a bunch of actors running around with Southern accents, playing good guys and bad guys and while that typically wouldn’t pass muster with me as a good story is vital for any movie to succeed, I have to admit, the locales, casting, and overall ambiance worked better than it had a right to. I’ve seen much better but believe me, I have also seen much, much worse.
Available on Blu-ray™ (plus Digital), DVD, and Digital June 25th from Lionsgate
