Rewatched SEA OF LOVE (1989) by Harold Becker after 25 years. Still the only Becker I've seen...
It's proto-Basic Instinct (including, for no reason, a beaver shot of Barkin...), but the serial killer angle doesn't work - at all. Everything else is pretty much cinema gold.
This should have been a romance between Pacino's cop and Ellen Barkin's shoe saleswoman. Barkin is so tense and so good, she's able to outshine Pacino (which is also great, cause it fits the story and characters).
Goodman is glorious as well.
It should have just been dead people, Pacino being a cop, Barkin's ex-husband being an ex-husband (like Pacino) etc.
Becker is of course no Verhoeven, but most of the scenes between Pacino and Goodman and Pacino and Barkin simply talking with each other and hanging out are outstanding.
Two years later we would get the masterpiece that is FRANKIE & JOHNNY (from the genius that was Garry Marshall, no less) and this could have already been a similar one as well - if it wasn't for the completely ridiculous and utterly stupid serial killer stuff. Well... did I say that Becker is no Verhoeven?
Anyway watch this if you love Goodman or Barkin or want to see Pacino doing Pacino stuff (which I personally enjoy very much).
![seaoflove1.jpg](./download/file.php?id=713)
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![seaoflove.jpg](./download/file.php?id=714)
- seaoflove.jpg (206.12 KiB) Viewed 636 times
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As someone expertly put it on letterboxd: IT'S A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY THAT AL PACINO DIDN'T DO MORE ROMCOMS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlWgttOpoLc
"I too am a child burned by future experiences, fallen back on myself and already suspecting the certainty that in the end only those will prove benevolent who believe in nothing." – Marran Gosov