It’s film noir in sunny Spain (if that makes any sense) as Iggy Pop stars in Toby Tobias’ minimalist crime drama, out on DVD from Metrodome.
Bill is an aging rock star (guess who). He lives in a seemingly isolated Spanish villa with his much younger wife Isabelle (Kacey Barnfield) who has a tendency to seduce any man who is young enough, good-looking enough, and within shagging distance. She gives them three goes to impress her in bed and if they fail, she dumps them and moves on to the next potential candidate.
Bill is actually quite happy with this arrangement, as all those years of performing on stage and appearing on car insurance ads have caused him to end up really rather knackered. Which isn’t surprising, really.
While Bill tries to compose his magnum opus and Isabelle keeps herself busy with the poolboy, into their sunny world comes one of Isabelle's ex-lovers. Lucas (Ben Lamb) is bent on getting his inheritance back, as he was having an affair with Isabelle while she was married to his elderly father, who died (and looking at Isabelle we presume with a smile on his face) and left her all his money. Tensions build and culminate in...well, at least one murder.
BLOOD ORANGE is okay, but it could have been much better. An immersion in the works of James M Cain and Cornell Woolrich before starting the script would have helped immensely in tightening it up, and the direction could have been a lot more suspenseful. BLOOD ORANGE is trying to emulate the clautrophobic passions of something like Laurence Kasdan’s BODY HEAT, but sadly the only thing hot here is the beautiful locations.
Performances are restrained to the point of being wooden (and I don’t mean Iggy - he’s actually fine, although I’d rather be watching him in a cameo as a wizard in the fantasy epic he looks ideally suited for) which means there’s very little tension to a piece that should be brimming with it.
BLOOD ORANGE will certainly do if you’re a fan of hard-boiled stuff and fancy something new to watch, just don’t have too high an expectation of it. Metrodome’s disc offers no extras.
BLOOD ORANGE is out from Metrodome on Monday July 11th 2016
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