Another gambol through Neo-NoirLand, complete with emotionally scarred anti-hero, dissembling femme fatale, and missing moolah. In Black Point, Wash., former naval officer John Hawkins (David Caruso) anesthetizes himself with alcohol after the kidnapping of his young daughter. Although his police pal, Lisa (Eileen Pedde), regularly gets Hawkins out of drunken scrapes, he's primed for a big fall. Then he encounters another lost soul, Natalie (Susan Haskell), who's just moved to town with her abusive spouse, Gus (Thomas Ian Griffith). Natalie is tired of being Gus's punching bag and wants the $3.5 million he's holding for his boss, so she formulates a plan. She keeps a close eye on Gus's illegal activities, steals a gun from Hawkins' house, and professes her loyalty to her husband while batting her eyelids and exposing her bruises to the sympathetic Hawkins. Natalie then murders Gus's brother and his partner with Hawkins' pistol and calls Hawkins in an apparent panic. He plays the patsy and comes running; she conks Hawkins over the head and lets the authorities assume the worst. Natalie also misleads Gus about Hawkins' guilt, claiming she was the victim of a home invasion. While Gus scrambles to locate the fortune his brother had been holding for him, Gus's boss, Malcolm (Miguel Sandoval), scrutinizes Natalie, who keeps changing her tune. Natalie hopes Gus, Malcolm and Hawkins will turn on each other, allowing her to abscond with her nest egg. But will they get wise to her scheme? The cast's histrionic competence and director David MacKay's smooth handling of the material may spruce up second-hand writing, but they can't convince viewers that they're buying anything new. Thomas Ian Griffith and Greg Mellott's script is undermined by perfunctory motivations, and while the action sequences are a welcome distraction from the characters' transparency, they're not enough to make the film worth sitting through. --Robert Pardi
