DIABOLIQUE (1996) ¢ 1/2
D: Jeremiah Chechik
Sharon Stone, Isabelle Adjani, Chazz Palminteri,
Kathy Bates, Shirley Knight, Spalding Gray
A persuasive argument against remaking classic movies, in which Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1955 thriller about a murder in a boys' boarding school gets transplanted from France to Pennsylvania, dropping its subtitles and all of its subtlety in between. Bates as a cagy, down-to-earth police detective almost saves it in the last half hour, but it's a case of too little too late. If you were one of those unlucky students whose seventh-grade math teacher did not look and act like a B-movie streetwalker, Stone's performance could make up for that.
