Pacific Heights (1990)

Rating: C-

Dir: John Schlesinger
Star: Michael Keaton, Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine

“Let’s not get a lodger – ever”, said Chris as the final credits rolled, and after watching this, you can only agree. Keaton plays the tenant from hell, who moves into Griffith’s and Modine’s nice new town house, and systematically begins to dismantle it, and their blissful lives. You have to suppress an urge to shout at them, since they behave in ways which are unbelievably stupid, yet we must cut them a certain amount of slack since it’s idiocy necessary to the plot, and allows Keaton to deliver a nicely malicious turn.

If there are too many cliches here for true effectiveness (oh, look – it’s the cat), it’s a decent evocation of every home owner’s worst nightmare – why do you think we only ever let our spare room in Tulse Hill out to people we knew? Melanie does a convincing impersonation of Meg Ryan, while Matthew is square-jawed and almost completely useless. At the end, the tables are turned, as you’d expect, with Ryan…sorry, Griffith proving a worthy opponent for Keaton, and I had a sneaking hope they’d waltz off into the sunset, arm-and-arm, Hannibal-the-novel-like. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying I was disappointed.