7/23/2022

JENNIFER CONNELLY STEALS DENNIS HOPPER'S 'THE HOT SPOT'

Title: THE HOT SPOT AKA  ZONA CALIENTE Year: 1990 Rating: ***1/2

You really know that director Dennis Hopper's THE HOT SPOT is a Noir when, within ten minutes of entering a new town... one that's extremely small and fitfully hot, and in Texas... Don Johnson's so smitten with local blackmailed beauty Jennifer Connelly, he questions her with the kind of irked jealousy a husband would have...

But she's the good girl here, comparably, while stacked-blonde Virginia Madsen's our sultry femme fatale... married to Johnson's wealthy used car lot boss... as quickly taken with old Don as he was with young Connelly, and, within moments, they're sharing not only heated chemistry but explosive sack time...

From the Blu Ray of THE HOT SPOT

The problems start when the ultra-atmospheric HOT SPOT becomes a thriller's BULL DURHAM with too many intrusive, overlong sex scenes that Hopper's obviously trying to push an envelope with... one that needed more of what makes the movie intriguing in the first place, like the opening when smooth-talker Johnson creatively lands his job... 

Or as he's wandering around town or chatting with his co-worker or dealing with a local lowlife, or pulling-off the inevitable anti-heist bank-heist while the sensuously slowburn relationship with Connelly not only takes up most of the screen time, it robs poor Virginia's ability to compete or contrast: For if Jennifer were a devil in angel's clothes instead of the girl-next-door, she'd have easily taken both female roles.

Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Car salesman Charles Martin Smith in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT with Don Johnson
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Don Johnson in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Virginia Madsen in THE HOT SPOT
Virginia Madsen in THE HOT SPOT
Virginia Madsen in THE HOT SPOT
Virginia Madsen in THE HOT SPOT
Don Johnson in THE HOT SPOT
From Dennis Hopper's THE HOT SPOT
From Dennis Hopper's THE HOT SPOT
From Dennis Hopper's THE HOT SPOT
From Dennis Hopper's THE HOT SPOT with Virginia Madsen
From Dennis Hopper's THE HOT SPOT with Don Johnson
Town scumbag William Sadler in THE HOT SPOT with blackmailed Jennifer Connelly
From Dennis Hopper's THE HOT SPOT with Don Johnson
From Dennis Hopper's THE HOT SPOT with Jennifer Connelly
From Dennis Hopper's THE HOT SPOT with Jennifer Connelly
Kino Lorber Blu Ray for THE HOT SPOT
Kino Lorber Blu Ray for THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
Jennifer Connelly in THE HOT SPOT
From the Blu Ray of THE HOT SPOT

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