Bruce Willis was in very high demand after Die Hard and Die Hard 2, but he also made some films which weren’t so popular, Hudson Hawk, Striking Distance, and Bonfire of the Vanities, in the early 1990s. Still, these movies made sense as film choices. Bonfire of the Vanities had been a best-selling book. Hudson Hawk was a personal project of the actor’s is quirky and funny. Striking Distance is at least a logical film, somewhat. However, The Color of Night doesn’t seem to make any logical sense for an actor. Especially an actor in such high demand as Bruce Willis.
For those who aren’t familiar, the movie centers around a psychotherapist named Bill Capa. He is practicing in New York at the start of the film and seeing a patient of his. This patient then commits suicide by leaping through the office windows and falling to her death. Capa races over and sees her body on the pavement. Blood speads across the sidewalk, but it changes from red to gray. Dr. Capa has gone color blind.
So, as is normal when this happens for a psychotherapist, he heads to Los Angeles to meet up with an old friend who has written a best selling book and is quite successful. Dr. Capa is also staying with him during his stay, but this doctor, named Bob Moore, invites Capa to join his group therapy session because he has been receiving death threatsm. Bill is supposed to help figure out the culprit. Around this time, Dr. Capa also meets Rose who becomes important to the story. As it would happen, Moore is soon killed, and Dr. Capa proceeds to investigate the murder on his own even though the police are working on the case. He suspects that it is one of those seeking group therapy. While pursuing this killer, he becomes sexually involved with Rose, time and again, and again, and again. These sex scenes are the best part of the movie. However, he isn’t the only one. Nearly every member of the therapy group has had a sexual encounter with her. The audience then discovers that one of the patients has been killed.
It’s at this point that the plot takes a crazy turn which, somehow, isn’t really a surprise. Rose actually is one of those in the group therapy session. She’s been pretending to be her little brother who’d killed himself years earlier. She’d been forced to do this by her brother Dale, and she, of course, went along with it. After discovering this, Dr. Capa goes to confront the brother and sister. Action ensues, Dale dies, Dr. Capa and Rose survive, and his psychosomatic colorblindness disappears.
Now, this movie is bad on many levels. It’s a gross misrepresentation of psychology. The logic of the story fails immediately, and the acting isn’t amazing. Again, there is no reason why Bruce Willis should have done this movie unless it was for the sex scenes. However, I do recommend watching this film because it is so bizarre. It’s not inspired bizarre, but it is the kind of bizarre which isn’t easily forgotten. The Color of Night may even make you laugh out loud. There’s also a good chance that you won’t finish the first viewing, but it’s worth the risk.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_of_Night
