The File on Madeleine Stowe

In looking through the streaming service movie channels, I find quite a few movies I've never heard of, although a lot of them are more recent and not necessarily of the greatest interest to me. One that's already about 30 years old that sounded like it had an interesting premise was China Moon, so I recently sat down to watch it.

Ed Harris plays Kyle Bodine, a police detective in a Florida city that seems about the same size as whichever Florida city William Hurt inhabited in Body Heat. Kyle doesn't have an exciting life, living quietly apart from investigating cases with his partner on the force Lamar (Benicio Del Toro).

Rupert Munro (Charles Dance) is a wealthy businessman married to Rachel (Madeleine Stowe) and insanely jealous, worried that his wife is cheating on him and trying to get pictures of her in compromising positions to prove it. It's a loveless marriage, giving Rachel good reason to cheat on her controlling husband. He abuses her, which leads her to call the police. As Kyle and Lamar happen to be the closest police car, they drive over to investigate.

Kyle is immediately taken with Rachel, which he ought to realize is a huge no-no especially if he's seen any noir movies, because god knows there are a whole bunch of noir movies where a guy who would be violating professional ethics to get involved with a particular woman still gets involved with her any way. The two start seeing each other secretly; he because it's a bad look to be seen in a relationship with somebody who was the subject of a domestic violence call, and she because she's got that jealous husband.

Things get bad enough for Rachel that she decides to leave the house for a weekend to go down to Miami and get away from Rupert. She then decides during the weekend to go back to the house to grab some belongings in preparation for a permanent break from Rupert. He's supposed to be out at some function, but he returns home and gets in a heated argument with Rachel. She's already bought a gun for self-defense that nobody else knows about, and now she pulls that gun out, leading to Rupert being shot twice.

Rachel doesn't know what to do, figuring she'll be subject to a murder trial even if it is self-defense. So she calls Kyle. As I said earlier, Kyle obviously hasn't seen any noir movies, because he makes the thoroughly stupid decision to tell Rachel what would be the best way to cover up the killing and make it look like somebody other than her shot Rupert. Of course, this means that there are going to be discrepancies, and those discrepancies are going to start leading to Kyle. Worse, it's not so much the cover-up as the apparent twist that it was actually his gun that fired the bullets that killed Rupert.

I've mentioned twice now that Kyle doesn't seem to be that familiar with noir. If you too aren't familiar with noir, or you're trying to introduce somebody who doesn't care so much for black-and-white cinema to noir (or more technically neo-noir), China Moon really isn't a bad movie. The problem, however, is for all of us who are film buffs and have seen at least a reasonable amount of noir. In that case, China Moon comes across as a pastiche of the genre, with so many plot points that seem like they're lifted straight from other movies. It's why I mentioned Body Heat and The File on Thelma Jordon already, and why I could easily have mentioned movies like Fred MacMurray's Pushover or Van Heflin in The Prowler or any of a dozen other similar movies.

Still, the three leads all give professional performances, and the movie is entertaining enough even if not quite original. If you're looking for something that's likely new to you for a lazy movie night with friends, China Moon wouldn't be a bad choice. Just don't expect anything groundbreaking or truly classic.