Jade is a 1995 erotic thriller with a dash of neo-noir. It was written by Joe Eszterhas and directed by William Friedkin.
In 1992 in the wake of the smash hit success of Basic Instinct Eszterhas was the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood. After this his career crashed, he had three box-office failures in a row and the critics moved in for the kill. In fact those box-office failures were extremely good and extremely interesting movies, the movies bombed largely due to extreme critical hostility and the perception that Eszterhas suddenly lost his touch is entirely wrong. But then critics usually are wrong.
Back to Jade. This is very much a San Francisco movie. It opens with the brutal murder of a very rich powerful man, Kyle Medford. Assistant DA David Corelli (David Caruso) is in charge of the investigation. Corelli has his own problems. He was in love with Trina (Linda Fiorentino), now a leading psychiatrist, but she married hot-shot lawyer Matt Gavin (Chazz Palminteri). Corelli is still carrying a torch for her, and still hoping that her marriage to Matt Gavin will break up and he’ll finally get to marry her. On the subject of Trina Corelli is perhaps not entirely rational. The situation is complicated by the fact that Corelli and Matt are friends.
The murder case takes a disturbing turn when it is discovered that Medford owned a beach house. The beach house was used by other rich powerful men for sex romps with very high-class hookers.
There are some interesting clues found in Medford’s houses. Medford was a collector. His collection included a large number of beautiful silver jewellery boxes. Inside each box is a lock of female pubic hair. There’s also a box with the word “jade” engraved on it. Not to mention some excellent photos of the Governor of California having sex with a hooker.
And there’s a video tape which had been thrown into the fire. Perhaps the scientific boys can salvage it. They can. It’s no surprise that it shows a rich important man having sex with a hooker but there’s something else about the tape that throws David Corelli for a loop.
There are also a couple of witnesses whose evidence is unsettling. One of them saw quite a few women entering that beach house. He saw them clearly.
It’s fairly evident that Jade is a woman, but finding her will be a challenge.
There are more killings and attempted killings and someone seems to have taken a murderous dislike to David Corelli.
There are thematic similarities to Basic Instinct which Eszterhas also wrote and the two films have a slightly similar vibe. There are some differences, party of course due to the fact that Basic Instinct and Jade had different directors. With Basic Instinct Paul Verhoeven was clearly homaging Hitchcock and to some extent film noir. It can be considered a neo-noir. In Jade Friedkin is going for a grittier scuzzier feel. Both movies deal with sex and power and with sex as a game in which the price the loser pays is death. Basic Instinct is more concerned with power within relationships while Jade is concerned with power in a broader sense. It also adds money to the mix. And corruption.
The world of Jade is entirely corrupt. Every person in any kind of authority is either corrupt or too scared to confront the corruption. Everyone is morally compromised. David Corelli is keenly aware that he too is in danger of being morally compromised.
There’s a spectacular and extremely clever and imaginative car chase which is of course what you would expect from William Friedkin.
Is this neo-noir? I think it just about qualifies. Corelli is a noir protagonist of sorts. He’s basically a decent guy but he’s already partially morally compromised (you don’t get to be Assistant DA without making a few sleazy moral compromises). He’s accustomed to a world of corruption in which it’s taken for granted that if a line of investigation seems to be leading to someone as powerful as the Governor then the normal procedure is to abandon that line of investigation immediately. Such people are above the law. He understands that the rich and powerful never get convicted. He’s not crooked but he has learnt to turn a blind eye to corruption.
Now he finds himself sliding further into this murky world. He’s also watching his own emotional life self-destructing. He also has people trying to kill him.
There’s a femme fatale of sorts. There’s a sense of events spiralling out of control and Corelli is certainly losing control.
David Caruso makes a pretty good lead but the standout performer is Linda Fiorentino. She’s sexy but disturbing – it’s not at all clear what makes this woman tick.
There’s a nice atmosphere of sleaze and plenty of suggestions of kinkiness.
I have mixed feelings about William Friedkin but he does a fine job here.
If you like movies that wrap things up neatly at the end, tied up with a pretty bow, you might not be entirely satisfied with the ending although I think it’s fine and it works. I don’t care what critics thought about this movie, I liked it a lot. Very highly recommended.
I bought the Spanish Blu-Ray which is (unlike some of the other releases of this film) in the correct aspect ratio and it’s a very nice transfer.
