This steamy slice of sordid small-town noir was adapted by novelist Charles Williams in 1962 as a never-produced vehicle for Robert Mitchum. Twenty-eight years later, it’s Don Johnson playing Harry Madox, an amoral drifter who saunters into town and, when he’s not selling used cars to the rubes, plots to rob the local bank and blow town with his dishy co-worker (Jennifer Connelly). But things get complicated when the dealership owner’s wife (Virginia Madsen) makes Harry the pawn in a plot of her own. Marketed as “Film Noir for the ’90s,” it’s dripping with sex beyond anything the old Production Code could have imagined. Dennis Hopper nicknamed it “Last Tango in Texas.” Propelling the twists and turns is a fabulous score, featuring John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis, and Taj Mahal. Luscious and lurid pulp from beginning to end.
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