Review: Sweet Revenge


Stockard Channing plays a young car thief who is trying to earn enough cash to buy her dream car, an expensive Ferrari. Sam Waterston plays the lawyer who tries his best to get through to the girl and put her onto the straight and narrow for good. But Channing is no ordinary car thief, she seems to have a compulsion for it, and can’t stop. Hell, it doesn’t even seem like she wants to. Franklyn Ajaye has a role as one of Channing’s associates.

 

The director of “Panic in Needle Park” and “Street Smart” strikes out with this dull 1976 film. Surprisingly, director Jerry Schatzberg takes what is pretty heavy subject matter, and turns what could’ve been reasonably gritty dramatic material, into a sudsy soap opera. Hell, given the main character’s involvement with cars, it could’ve even been turned into a fun exploitation film. It’s not nearly worthy of the ‘BOMB’ rating Leonard Maltin gave it- it’s too harmless for that. But it’s also completely toothless, superficial, insignificant, and frankly a bit sluggish. It’s not a terrible film, but one can easily see why it has been forgotten.

 

Stockard Channing is a fine and charismatic actress and pretty believable in the lead, but the girl can’t work miracles. It’s especially hard to sympathise with her character when she keeps fucking up, and the character doesn’t have much depth. We’re not really given any indication that she’s a Klepto or has some mental compulsion to be doing what she is doing. The romance between Channing and Sam Waterston is a bust too, because she’s unlikeable and he’s Sam Waterston. Sorry, but the guy is a block of wood and the stiffest actor around outside of a porno. Oh well, at least playing a lawyer isn’t exactly a stretch for the guy. The connection isn’t there. It’s also a shame that the multi-talented and versatile Franklyn Ajaye is wasted in a part that, although the actor is likeable, requires little more of him than to say ‘dig’ at least once per sentence.

 

Meanwhile, there aren’t even any cool cars or exciting car chases. You’d think the film would at least work on that level. But no, it’s not really a drive-in movie. No, this one’s just not worth seeing. It’s just...there. The superficial, underdone screenplay is by Marilyn Goldin (the French film “Camille Claudel”, of all films), B.J. Perla (her only significant credit), and Jor Van Kline.

 

Rating: C

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