MOVIE REVIEW : Traces of Genre Confusion in Thriller ‘Traces of Red’

At the end of “Traces of Red” (selected theaters), a murder mystery set in Florida’s Palm Beach, there’s a double reverse switcheroo climax in which the filmmakers scramble up the clues and reverse our expectations.

It’s the sort of puzzle-plot, suspicion-juggling sleight-of-hand that mystery novelists Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen used to pull off regularly. Here, the surprise is a genuine one. But there’s a problem. “Traces of Red” also tries for another pedigree: the lower-case, mean streets thriller mode that writers like John D. MacDonald, Jim Thompson or Harry Whittington excelled in: the post film noir hard-boiled, sexually explicit expose.

It wants grunge, wisecracks, topical reference, casual evil. It wants to take us into its milieu--in this case Palm Beach and the Florida Gold Coast during an election campaign, a serial killing outbreak and a string of lipstick smeared death-threat letters. It wants to strip away the veneer of the guilty rich, expose chicanery, peel back the sordid past.

Maybe there’s something inimical about these two genres. The Thompson-MacDonald thriller doesn’t really depend on surprises or “the most unlikely suspect.” Its intention was less to tease and trick us than to open up a world. And the Queen/Christie murder mystery usually avoided reality and played games instead.

“Traces of Red” is trapped between the two. And though it’s smarter than many lower- or middle-budget movie thrillers, which usually try with massive lack of conviction and no real contemporary observation to revive the hard-boiled style, it’s ultimately unsatisfying.

The actors are fun to watch: Jim Belushi as a lubricious cop, Tony Goldwyn as a leery sidekick and Lorraine Bracco as a lascivious socialite. Belushi and Bracco come up with amusingly lewd macho (or macha ) behavior; Goldwyn is trickily ambivalent and William Russ (the candidate brother), Faye Grant (the police wife), Michelle Joyner (the available waitress), Joe Lisi (the lieutenant), Mario Ernesto Sanchez and Joseph C. Hess (the heavies) and writer Jim Piddock himself (the landlord) provide a varied gallery of suspects, victims and local color.

But the pleasure of the film tends to evaporate after the last trick. There’s not enough clever characterization, witty or pungent dialogue, dead-on social observation or twisty psychology to hold your admiration.

There’s some potential here: the sexual tension bouncing around among the cops; the amoral socialite and the faithful wife, and the added layer of political and familial muckraking that comes in with the Senate campaign of Belushi’s wheeler-dealer brother. Belushi is an often wasted actor; he’s all right here. Bracco competes with Ellen Barkin for the hard-as-nails sneering glamour prize. And Goldwyn keeps his eyes ambivalently blue, his manner opaque.

The milieu is a plus: Palm Beach, with its sunnily conspicuous consumption. But “Traces of Red,” (MPAA-rated R for language, sensuality, violence), directed by Andy Wolk and written by British actor-turned-writer Jim Pinnock, always seems a tourist job. The dialogue has the phony swagger of the ‘40s-’50s British tough-guy writers--Peter Cheyney, William Hadley Chase--who tackled the American style. “Traces of Red” piques our interest, even lets us pass a pleasant moment or two with its cast. But it never really puts us in the place. Its kiss leaves no trace.

‘Traces of Red’

Jim Belushi: Jack Dobson

Lorraine Bracco: Ellen Schofield

Tony Goldwyn: Steve Frayn

William Russ: Michael Dobson

A Samuel Goldwyn Co. presentation. Director Andu Wold. Producer Mark Gordon. Executive producer David V. Picker. Screenplay by Jim Piddock. Cinematographer Tim Suhrstedt. Editor Trudy Ship. Costumes Hilary Rosenfeld. Music Grame Revell. Production design Dan Bishop, Dianna Frears. Art director Richard Fojo. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (language, sensuality, violence).