Quote from Dan Merrick to his wife: "You know
what I like best about amnesia? After seven years of marriage,
I get to fall in love with you all over again."
The tension and suspense in this excellent,
Hitchcock-like mystery thriller begins immediately from the
beginning credits, complete with spooky music. The audience
gets a view out of the front window of a car, which is traveling
down a winding, mountain road, somewhere in Marin county in
the fog. The car at first is being driven normally, but then
starts to go faster and faster, swerving around the corners.
The audience then gets the view from the other
side of a stone wall along the road. It is still and quiet.
Suddenly an expensive sports car crashes over the wall, comes
straight down on the steep hill on the other side, and starts
its vicious roll down the hill. A woman, Judith Merrick (Greta
Scacchi), is thrown from the car early on, but the man inside,
Dan Merrick (Tom Berenger) is banged around pretty badly, until
what is left of the car rests at the very bottom. This sequence
of scenes was very well done!
At the hospital, not only was Dan Merrick physically
in critical condition, but his face was pulverized, because
his head went through the windshield. (Someone wasn't wearing
his seat belt.)
When he finally comes out of his coma, he has
no memory of who he is, but he finds his loving wife there to
love, help and support him, coaching him with pictures, telling
him stories of their history together. He undergoes extensive
plastic surgery to rebuild his face. Toward the end of his hospital
stay, the couple becomes amorous, and pleasant bits of memory,
such as waves on a beach, and a ceiling fan enter Dan's mind
as they make love on the hospital bed (tastefully done.) After
more plastic surgery, and physical therapy, he is released from
the hospital and the happy couple comes home, where Dan is in
for some distressing surprises. While their deluxe home seems
familiar, bits of disturbing memory bombard him suddenly when
he looks into the bedroom mirror, triggering a rage.
When he notices a picture of himself holding
a tobacco pipe, he goes into his study, and starts to fix his
pipe, hoping to trigger a memory or two. At the bottom of the
tobacco bin, he discovers a roll of incriminating picture proofs
that plant the thought that his marriage wasn't in good shape
before the accident. Further disturbing pieces of information
about himself and his wife surface from his business partner,
Jeb Scott (Corbin Bernsen) and his wife Jenny (Joanne Whalley),
when the Merrricks go over to their house for a welcome back
dinner.
As he checks out what clues and bits of information
that he has picked up, and hears what he did as a business partner,
he discovers that he wasn't a very nice guy in his life before
his car accident. His wife was no angel either, who seems to
have her fair share of character flaws. He continues not only
to try to find out who he is, but now wanting to find out the
truth about what happened before the accident.
While looking through his papers at his desk
at work, he comes across a rather large bill sent by a pet shop
owner / private investigator, the colorful Gus Klein (Bob Hoskins).
So, Merrick goes to see him, discovering that he was the private
investigator that Merrick had apparently hired to trail his
wife, and had taken the disturbing photos found in the tobacco
box. Now things really start to pop in the storyline, with twists
and turns to keep the audience on the edge of their seat, trying
to figure out the truth. Merrick and the private eye work together
to figure out the web of lies and deceit, the sinister clues,
unknowingly facing an unknown danger in the process. Uncovering
the truth can be a dangerous occupation.
This screenplay flows with the twists and turns,
which keep popping out at the audience, right up to the exciting,
shocking ending. The screenplay has the audience thinking one
way, until something happens in the story, which points in another
direction, with the effect of totally engaging the audience.
Shattered is a mystery thriller classic because of its riveting,
clear, plausible storyline, its gifted and insightful direction,
faboulous cinematography and musical score, and a terrific cast
who brought the whole project to life. This mystery thriller
was directed expertly by a master of suspense, an acclaimed
German film maker, Wolfgang Peterson, who also adapted this
screenplay from the novel, The Plastic Nightmare, by Richard
Neely. He knows how to put a mystery thriller together. Every
twist and turn is portrayed very clearly by Wolfgang Perterson,
and there are no wasted scenes - each scene ads to the total
development of the story, and contain clues for the audience
to chew on, along with our protagonist, Dan Merrick.
Wofgang Peterson, who was trained as a director
in Hungary, was nominated for Best Director and for the Best
Screenplay adapted from another source for the film Das Bout.
He crossed over into directing Amercian films afterwards, bringing
his talents to such films as Air Force One, Enemy Mine, and
In the Line of Fire.
The fine cinemaphotography, which includes some
fine slow motion, and dream -like sequences was directed by
one of the most respected directors of photography, Laslo Kovacs,
who was first noticed by his work on Five Easy Pieces. He has
filmed a wide variety of types of film genres, from action (Paradise
Alley) to romantic comedies (Retun to Me.)
The musical score was composed by the versatile,
immensely talented Alan Silvestri, who has composed music for
a variety of film genres. This composer captures the spirit
and suspense of this mystery thriller. Among his other films,
he composed music for Romancing the Stone, The Fifth Floor,
all Back to the Future films, The Predator films, The Mummy
Returns, Reindeer Games, and all of Robert Zemeckis' films.
Tom Berenger shines in his portrayal of the
very confused Dan Merrick, a man lucky to be alive, determined
to find out the particulars of who he is and what the truth
is, no matter how disturbing or dangerous it may be.
Character actor, Bob Hoskins gives an entertaining
performance of the pet store owner, Gus Klein, who is also a
private investigator to earn extra money to feed his pet shop
animal pets, which range from a snake to a monkey.
Greta Scacchi, does a wonderful job portraying
Merrick's loving wife, Judith Merrick, who has some disturbing
idyocencracies that Scacchi slowly, subtly shows the audience
in bits and pieces, as the direction and storyline allows.
This film is rated R, for the 17 and over crowd.
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