In this post, we look at a neo-noir with a female antagonist as its lead character. ‘The Last Seduction’ is a steamy neo-noir from the 90s starring Linda Fiorentino, Bill Pullman, and Peter Berg, directed by John Dahl, with a splendid screenplay by Steve Barancik.

Linda Fiorentino plays Bridget Gregory, the Femme Fatale on steroids. She is the ultimate psychopath, feeling no empathy, incapable of love, who can seduce men and use them in her own diabolic agenda. Bridget works as a manager in a telemarketing firm in New York, the 90s equivalent of the modern-day call center. Her husband, Clay (Bill Pullman), a physician, has a little side business where he sells prescription drugs to drug dealers and addicts. Unfortunately, he owes money to a dangerous moneylender. One day, after making a lucrative deal with some dealers, he brings home a bag full of cash.

Seizing the opportunity, Bridget absconds with the money and makes her way to Chicago. In Beston, a rural town, she stops at a bar to have a drink. A young man, Mike (Peter Berg), is at the bar, talking about his brief failed marriage in Buffalo and his failed effort to make it in a big city.

Mike is immediately attracted to Bridget, who first rudely dismisses him but later decides to use him for her own sexual satisfaction. When she finds out from a lawyer friend of hers that Mike is looking for her, she takes his advice to stay in Beston for a while and delay her trip to Chicago. Under an assumed alias, Wendy Kroy, she takes up a job at an insurance company in Beston, where Mike works. Mike is soon falling for ‘Wendy’, becoming the ultimate patsy in the nasty web she is about to weave.

Mike, her husband, seems to be a suitable adversary for her, hires Harlan (Bill Nunn), a black detective, to locate her. Harlan locates her in Beston, but Bridget is not beyond killing him and exploiting the prejudices and xenophobia of the small-town citizenry to escape the law.

Knowing that Mike is not going to stop going after her, she puts her own diabolical plot to work, using her loyal and unsuspecting Mike as a pawn in it. Can Mike outwit her and bring her down? That is a question answered in the rest of the plot.

One great aspect of neo-noir movies is that they can push the limits of the plot beyond what was possible in the film noir era of the 30s and 40s. The highly restrictive Production Code had strict rules that in movie plots, no character could get away with a crime or share a bed with someone other than a spouse. Thankfully, neo-noirs like ‘The Last Seduction’ have since broken these rules and given us more outrageously deliciously wicked plots. To put it in the words of Roger Ebert,

“John Dahl’s The Last Seduction knows how much we enjoy seeing a character work boldly outside the rules. It gives us a diabolical, evil woman, and goes the distance with her. We keep waiting for the movie to lose its nerve, and it never does.”

This movie is a must-see for all neo-noir fans. Linda Fiorentino is outstanding in it, while Berg and Pullman throw in decent performances. Steve Barancik’s slick screenplay and John Dahl deserve praise as well.