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| Matthew Modine, Melanie Griffith, and Michael Keaton in Pacific Heights |
Cast: Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine, Michael Keaton, Mako, Nobu McCarthy, Laurie Metcalf, Carl Lumbly, Dorian Harewood, Luca Bercovici, Tippi Hedren, Jerry Hardin, Dan Hedaya, Beverly D'Angelo. Screenplay: Daniel Pyne. Cinematography: Amir Mokri. Production design: Neil Spisak. Film editing: Steven Ramirez, Mark Warner. Music: Hans Zimmer.
Drake Goodman and Patty Palmer, a young couple played by Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith, splurge on fixing up a Victorian house in San Francisco, thinking they'll be able to afford it by renting out two apartments on the first floor. But one of the tenants turns out to be a psychopath. It's a simple horror/thriller premise that depends on the audience's identification with the beleaguered homeowners, And it works as long as the tenant is a plausible nutcase in disguise, a role that Michael Keaton ably pulls off. But John Schlesinger's Pacific Heights goes awry when Drake, the homeowner, turns out to be something of a nutcase himself, unable to control his temper and his urge to get even once the tenant, who calls himself Carter Hayes, is revealed as a conniving and malicious fraud. Modine is normally a rather bland actor, and the part might have made more sense if it had gone to someone used to playing guys with a short fuse, but the script by Daniel Pyne is also at fault for not tipping us off earlier that Drake is thin-skinned and volatile. Once Drake implodes and winds up in jail, it falls to Patty, who has suffered a miscarriage under the stress of trying to evict Hayes from the house, to turn detective and exact revenge. The movie actually begins with a bit of Hayes's backstory, which doesn't become clear to anyone until Patty sleuths it out. The more complicated the film becomes, the more implausible Keaton's character and the machinations of dealing with him also become. There's also a curious side plot about a Black man (Carl Lumbly) who applied for the apartment before Hayes turned up, but lost out when his application was accidentally tossed in the trash. It serves only to make a gratuitous point about perceived racism and not to advance the story. Griffiths's mother, Tippi Hedren, has a cameo as a wealthy woman being courted by Hayes, and an unbilled Beverly D'Angelo does good work as his former girlfriend. Laurie Metcalf is wasted in the small role of Drake and Patty's lawyer. Pacific Heights works only as long as you don't think about it too much or expect more than a few mild shocks.
