Jade

Jade, like many another recent erotic or techno thriller, is packed with talent, polished and technically dazzling. But, daring as it might seem in its sexual content and exposure of bad behavior among the mighty, it's curiously soft at conveying what these characters really believe. [13 Oct 1995, p.J2]

But a movie is only as good as its script, and this one is labored, predictable, sexually unimaginative (despite its salacious poster, and Eszterhas' reputation), surprisingly abrupt (only 90 minutes) and strangely inconclusive. [13 Oct 1995]

There's only one character we can identify with - a San Francisco police detective played by David Caruso - and he doesn't drive the plot so much as get swept along by it. Read full review

Despite its posh trimmings, and Fiorentino's feline presence, Jade never rises above its limitations and never cloaks the fact that Eszterhas' dialogue and script are basically pulp -- minus the trashy fun that we've come to expect from the genre. Read full review

Friedkin still has it: The car chase is the best thing in the movie, though so unconnected to the plot it could have been added without changing Eszterhas' script a whit. But, that excitement over, the movie ultimately self-destructs in the matter of its own ending. [13 Oct 1995]

Jade is the latest offering from sleazemeister screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct, Sliver, Showgirls), and just as you'd expect, this movie has lots of sex, lots of violence, and little plausibility or wit. [13 Oct 1995, p.4G]

The latest offering from the serial scribe who scripted Showgirls has another femme with an overactive libido and not much else. [13 Oct 1995]

The script, by Showgirls' Joe Eszterhas, seems dead-set on evoking a darkly sensuous mood, full, as it is, of sex games, secret sex tapes and even - Lord help us - a fertility mask. But William Friedkin (Blue Chips, The Exorcist) directs in such a stark, threatening style that the combined effect of their efforts is an uninvolving, faintly creepy brooding. [13 Oct 1995, p.25]

Jade is sharp enough to keep you focused, but as usual Eszterhas is more interested in cynical titillation than in making much sense or (heaven forbid) exploring a substantial theme. [13 Oct 1995, p.F3]

Jade is another thriller where convenient shocks substitute for clues and motives come from the groin, not the mind. [13 Oct 1995, p.6]

Friedkin, to his credit, gives us a nicely compelling car chase through the near-vertical hills of San Francisco, but it's only five minutes long, and this is a 105-minute film. What to do with the other 100 minutes? No one seems to know. Read full review

Jade tries so hard to be a serious, lush noir but, like the cheap sex it revels in, it is ultimately a hollow, anti-climactic experience. Read full review

A muddled mix of sex, political corruption and murder, Jade is a jigsaw puzzle that never puts all the pieces together. Read full review

The point of this enterprise is to put the slinky, husky-voiced Fiorentino into compromising positions with as many men as possible and to provide director William Friedkin (The French Connection) with an excuse to stage three long chase scenes. Seems like everybody got what they wanted out of this thing except for us. [13 Oct 1995, p.48]

Jade recalls Sliver (even before its fizzled finale) by reuniting Eszterhas with producer Robert Evans, the faded genius and ill-pegged comeback producer who fared better with last year's lively autobiography The Kid Stays in the Picture. Judging from his last two movies, the aging kid stays on the D-list, too.

What we want to know is why we should care about any of these stick figures. Eszterhas seems as bored with them as we are. He's just moving his dopey plot along, leaving Friedkin to fill in the gaps with car chases and irrelevant chinoiserie. Read full review

Though the combination of Linda Fiorentino, Chazz Palminteri and David Caruso promised Jade some fire, it winds up with no more spark than a doused campfire. Read full review

Director William Friedkin has created a stylistic picture, but this is an example of style without substance. Read full review

The hiccupping inelegance of this movie's narrative and direction makes it impossible to empathize with or even really comprehend any of the characters. Read full review

For a movie that's supposed to be sex-driven, Jade has the sexual energy of a dead battery. [13 Oct 1995, p.42]

The plot of Jade is so ridiculous, its dialogue so dreary, that nothing can save it - not seriously talented actors, not a revered director, not $ 40 million worth of movie-making muscle. [13 Oct 1995, p.3E]

Jade's seamy excesses would be conventional in a direct-to-video erotic thriller; in a major studio production, they're embarrassing. Read full review

A flagrantly vicious and broken-down murder melodrama that leaves recognizable fingerprints all over the place while making a chump of director William Friedkin. [13 Oct 1995, p.C16]

Directed by William "When's the next chase scene?" Friedkin, acted by comatose David Caruso and monotonous Linda Fiorentino and Chazz Palminteri, Jade is more like "Jaded." [13 Oct 1995, p.11F]

Pretentious, boring, and consistently uninvolving, this effort by producer Robert Evans and director William Friedkin to make comebacks with an incoherent Joe Eszterhas script simply won't wash.

Watching Jade is such a hollow experience it’s hard to work up the energy to dismiss it. A movie where the car chases have more personality than the people, its monotone acting and recycled plot make one wonder, not for the first time, how something this tired ever got made. Read full review

The role strips Fiorentino of charisma and grace. Caruso, too, has little to do and does it poorly. Thrown in are a few hackneyed Friedkin 'show-stoppers': an extended car chase, and a variation on the car-with-cut-brake-cables number. Camerman Andrzej Bartkowiak does little more than provide a sheeny gloss on standard ritzy SF locations. Bad. Read full review