A trashy, kinky, entertaining erotic thriller, in the "Basic Instinct" vein, if not in the same league. Both films are mainly set in San Francisco and are scripted by Joe Eszterhas; his story this time is partly predictable (there is one famous actor who doesn't appear to have much of a role, so you can tell they're saving him for something big at the end) but still sufficiently twisty-turny. David Caruso is a weak lead, but he is surrounded by a strong supporting cast. The technical credits (editing, music, cinematography) are top-notch, and there is a car chase sequence that is both spectacular and original; the part of it that goes through a Chinatown parade is not quite like anything I have seen before. If you liked "Color Of Night" with Bruce Willis, you'll probably like this film as well. **1/2 out of 4.

Jade has a pretty straight forward story with a murder and a love triangle between the three main characters. Because of the love triangle, it creates a conflict of interest between the two male characters. The plot sounds interesting enough. However, the way the final product was executed did not deliver an exhilarating or satisfactory story, conclusion, or thriller. Although, the unrated version, which is 12 mints longer, does assist in creating additional development for some of the characters.The film does inhabit i think some of Friedkin's finest work. An example would be the car chases sequence, which is in fact one of the most spectacular and thrilling chases ever filmed. I think it's his best to date. Cinematography for the film is beautiful and very noir like in the night scenes. Although he did a decent job with directing the leading characters, only Chazz Palminteri came across as really inhabiting his character. To me the problem with the film is that the story probably got lost in the editing or through rewrites.The bluray for this film, by Lionsgate, is one of the worst transfers I've ever seen. I wish paramount would put out both version of the film on a bluray. The theatrical version is not impressive at all but the unrated cut does a better job.

Jade is the kind of cinema where the director who has some genuine talent and vision, if not consistently then strong when the iron hits, has to try and make something out of hackwork. Joe Esztherhas may have been well paid during his time in the limelight of the early-mid 90's and had some successes as a writer, but for all of his erotically-charged bizarre flourishes, there was always the air of hackwork in his script, but here the hack comes to roost. This has scintillating plot details and twists - especially, and ludicrously, in the final fifteen minutes where it piles up to ludicrous heights - and not really much soul at all.Oh sure, there are characters, and they want things and feel betrayals and go about the motions of the script, and there's some dirty sex here and there (mostly caught on grainy voyeuristic radio), but I don't know if I really gave a dam about most of the main characters. The actors are probably trying to, especially David Caruso as he mostly tries to underplay what could have been scenery-chewing times for another actor. But they also are kind of prisoners of a screenplay that is just... I don't know, except that while some of the dialog isn't terrible, some of it is. Some of it made me cringe, and some of it had me laughing.So why the high rating? Why recommend it even partially? Because Friedkin is still at the helm, and he has fun here. And in ways I wasn't quite expecting. Sometimes he'll just mess with the actors on set - there's a cat that appears in the hallway of where the cops walk around, and I can be pretty sure that wasn't a detail outlined in the script (and it's a fine detail to throw in there). And there is a car chase - roll eyes, again, from Friedkin, can't he do that in his sleep - and it's STILL unique to his world. This time he has some kind of perverse enjoyment with a) having just over-the-top car stunts as cars fly through the air practically on San Fransisco streets, and then going 2 miles an hour in a Chinatown parade where the citizens attack both the predator and prey! What happens then in this story of backstabbing and murder and "deviant" sex and politics and so on, real pulpy - nay, just pot-boiler material - is that the simple style of it, how the direction is oddly elegant and experimental in some small ways, makes what is otherwise crap watchable. Maybe I'll even revisit it at 3 in the morning on cable.

This is a Basic Instict rehash plain and simple, actually it's a pre draft of basic instict. The directing is a mess, I can't believe this guy shot the french connection. But now he's old and where he tries to be different here, he is instead just plainly bad...Tight close ups for no reasons, boring set scenes, saturated photography...the cast is decent but with such a trite script...the dialog is worse than trivial.Its only saving grace is an unintended one, and maybe with that meditation in mind this can actually become a good film: Because the grotesqueness, blandness and stupidity in the realisation and script of this film reflects the world of powerless unsexual morons acting all powerful and sexual. Obviously this is unintended as this tries to be edgy, erotic and smart. It tries to be a murder mystery, a who done it on coke a la BI, but it ends up being a who gives a ..., I 've never been so emotionally detached at the end of any mystery. But in this way it poetically conveys within it's form the artificiality of power and sex, the dead end that is pleasure without sentiments and sensibility.A bland, derivative, tasteless film about power, sex and wealth, that fails so miserably that its failure becomes a medium of expression and gives the film an unintended second narrative level. It's also starkly realist, because what can be more real than a failed Hollywood flop on sex, money and power. You don't see people doing realistic actions, but you see people acting, directing badly, writing scripts badly. The epitome of decadence. It could even be quite a good sobering experience, even weirdly lyrical if one watches it with that in mind.