It's a well-acted, well-directed, and well-photographed study of a handful of neurotics, their shrink, and the homicidal maniac who gums up the works.Willis is the shrink who takes over the leadership in the therapy group when his friend is brutally murdered. The general sense is that one of the group did it, but no one knows which one.Richard Rush directed "The Stuntman," an exceptionally fine film, more than a decade earlier and this represents his return. I imagine that Rush is responsible for the sunny location shooting in LA and for the evocative production design. The house -- if that's what it is -- that Willis takes over from his deceased friend is a massive structure fitted out with expensive toys. I wouldn't like to think that all LA shrinks live like that. He's also been very careful about certain details. The color red, for instance. We don't see it that often but when we do it's fully saturated, fluorescent, and stands out like nobody's business, turning a woman's lips into something almost frightening.Rush is also responsible for some extraordinary shots that needlessly call attention to themselves. A crushed body lies bleeding on a New York street, and Rush places the camera several feet BENEATH the corpse and shoots upward through a transparent pavement.The story itself is quite well done, carried along as much by the performers as by the plot. Jane March shows up to become Willis' main squeeze and play a pivotal role at the end. There is considerable gratuitous nudity which I enjoyed immensely. Not Bruce Willis' butt, to which I'm totally indifferent, but March's slender, girlish figure.It's a decent mystery but has a couple of flaws, one of them lethal. Among the gigs are two pointless car chases through the streets of Los Angeles -- and I mean pointless because nothing comes of either. In another scene, Willis' car is pushed out of a high-rise parking lot and almost crushes him on the ground ten stories below. He escapes the falling vehicle and the mass of flying wreckage it creates by running away from it, in slow motion, towards the camera. (Ho hum.) The plot is full of hidden holes, so many and so subtle that they slip by almost unnoticed. Egs., how can Willis simply move into his friend's mansion, drive his car, and in effect take over his identity. He had a license to practice in New York state. Now he decides, on a whim, to practice in California? Without wrestling with red tape from the state and from the rabid and proprietary American Psychological Association? The difficulties aren't even alluded to. The APA wouldn't even let me become a member, let alone a fellow, although I have a doctorate in clinical psychology. They didn't like the school I'd gone to. The plot was sometimes so turgid that I was lost. (Maybe a second viewing.) The climactic confrontation involves the deployment of a nail gun and an electric drill and the circumstances destroy the movie completely, turning it into an ill-conceived and confusing action movie with thunder and lightning, tottering on the lip of a long fall, and all the other accouterments. What a disappointment.Nope. This isn't "The Stuntman." But I'm reluctant to blame the film's weaknesses on the director alone. He hadn't made a movie in fourteen years and it's very likely that the producers kept him on a tight leash. It happens. In "The Godfather," the scene in which Carlo beats hell out of his pregnant wife, using a belt, was not Francis Ford Coppola's idea. The producers insisted on an "action" scene at that point in the story because they were afraid it might otherwise be too sluggish for the audience. I can easily imagine something like that happening here.The characters are diverse and colorful, mostly in a quiet way, but Ruben Blades' cop enlivens every scene he's in -- profane, ironic, earthy. Jane March is a dish. She shares something with another cast member, Leslie Ann Warren. Their grins are filled with gleaming chiclets, the size of squares on a chess board. Between the two of them, they could gnaw through an iron bolt as easily as a corn cob at an Iowa picnic. Willis holds up his end well, and so do the members of his group, including Brad Douriff as a lawyer with OCD. He was my costar in "Blue Velvet" so I'm compelled to give him bonus points.

Color-blind psychiatrist Bill Capa (Bruce Willis) is stalked by an unknown killer after taking over his murdered friend's therapy group, all of whom have a connection to a mysterious young woman that Capa begins having intense sexual encounters with.What a great cast of genre folks: Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen and Scott Bakula. Then you have Bruce Willis in some steamy romance scenes. Ooh, Bruce! (This was probably just about the last year he could claim to be a hunk.) This film was a couple years before my time, but it must have slipped largely under the radar. In the twenty or so active years I have been pursuing films, this was not one that had crossed my path before, and certainly should have given the people involved.

Looking at the other reviews, this film is like marmite - you either like it or hate it! I liked it quite a lot. Bruce Willis is quite enjoyable - you could compare it to The Sixth Sense - he's a therapist in that one too. It's the kind of film where there are preposterous moments that make you smile, but there's enough good acting to outweigh that. Is it 'so bad, it's good'? - Yes at times it falls into that category - especially in the closing scenes. However, lots of credit to Jane March... call me slow on the uptake if you like, but I had no inkling that Ritchie/Rose are the same actress till the end. One thing that lets it down is the music - fairly corny at times, could have been much improved with a more original score. I think Dale should have risen one more time from the dead, to make it a truly 'so bad it's good' film!

I really don't know how anybody expects me to write more than twenty-five words about such a trashy thriller as "Color of Night". Let's face it, the real attractions - if you can call them that - are the steamy sex scenes between hunky Bruce Willis and nymphomaniac waif Jane March. There is certainly plenty of their flesh on show, so if this is your thing I guess you could wade your way through the rest of the garbage (if you are really that desperate) or make good use of the fast forward button. My advice though would be to use the eject button instead.Director Richard Rush ought to find another vocation, though I admit he had nothing to work with in Billy Ray's story. Director of Photography Dietrich Lohmann has nothing but naked bodies to film, editor Jack Hofstra should have been fired while the music from Dominic Frontiere may be the worst ever composed for a movie of this type.At least the cast, including Lance Henrikson, Lesley Ann Warren, Brad Dourif, Ruben Blades and Kevin J. O'Connor seem to realise they're in a shocker.Sunday, September 22, 1996 - Video