she was the femme in " la femme nikita . " he was the baldwin in " backdraft , " " sliver , " and " fair game " ( with cindy crawford ) . together , anne parillaud and william baldwin conspire to make " shattered image " <NEG> the biggest piece of hooey </NEG> since the stallone/stone " thriller " " the specialist . " the film poses the question " what if the life you're living now is really a dream , and your dreams reality ? " it's either about a woman who's haunted by a recurring ( and recurring and recurring ) nightmare that she's a hired assassin , or it's about a hired assassin who's haunted by a recurring ( and recurring and recurring ) nightmare that she's honeymooning with william baldwin in jamaica . it doesn't much matter and believe me by the time " shattered image " runs its <NEG> painful and pedestrian course </NEG> you won't care . these two lives , with parillaud looking like siouxsie sioux with a black wig , black emotionless eyes , and black leather clothing in the seattle-based assassin scenes , and moping around like karen carpenter in the jamaica scenes , <NEG> play out endlessly </NEG> throughout the film and the result is <NEG> it's now * twice * as boring </NEG> as it might have been . it's not that complicated plots can't be entertaining . of course it helps if you have interesting characters , crisp dialogue , and a modicum of style . " shattered image " isn't complex , <NEG> it's just stupid </NEG> . and <NEG> boring </NEG> . parillaud and baldwin , who aren't exactly shakespearean material to begin with , are saddled with <NEG> such leaden dialogue </NEG> that their characters have <NEG> zero chance of breaking free of their cardboard confines </NEG> . lines like : " you don't beg , you insist . i like that in a woman . " that's parillaud's character talking . . . to her cat ! and : " you're not the reason i couldn't care less about you . " <NEG> huh ? </NEG> and this wonderful bathroom interchange early in the film : " if you give me a couple of minutes you know i'll charm the pants off you . " " i don't have that kind of time . " talking of pants , parillaud has her clothes off faster than you can say " point of no return . " we have come to expect this from billy baldwin , but it might have been nice to have learned something about their characters first . but <NEG> there's nothing to learn </NEG> . karen is <NEG> as interesting as a cereal box </NEG> , a someone's-out-to-get-me <NEG> crybaby </NEG> who imagines the voice at the other end of the phone , the stranger who sends her flowers , maybe even her husband himself , is her would-be killer . siouxsie is the chromium cool , tough-as-nails crack killing machine who shoots out a couple of mirrors in order to justify the film's meaningless stock title . baldwin seems more interested in parillaud's nest egg ( so that he can pave paradise and put up a parking lot ) than he does in her . each time graham greene shows up he gets killed . barbet schroeder ( " reversal of fortune " ) co-produced and <NEG> should be ashamed of himself </NEG> . every now and again it's fun to watch a really bad movie . and every now and again , as " shattered image " makes agonizingly clear , it isn't .
