Wild Palms
Reviewer: Tom Leins
Issue 103 May 2008
(1 votes, average: 6 out of 10)
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Oliver Stone takes us back to the future!
The Lowdown: Set in futuristic 2007 Los Angeles, Wild Palms follows successful corporate lawyer Harry Wyckoff who finds himself plagued by recurring nightmares involving a rhinoceros. Bizarrely, Harry’s dreams are shared by a number of other people, all of whom are connected in some way to strange religious billionaire Anton Kreutzer…
Review: Produced by Oliver Stone and adapted by A Nightmare On Elm Street 3 scribe Bruce Wagner from his own comic strip, Wild Palms is an undeniably intriguing prospect. When you factor in guest directors like Kathryn Bigelow, your interest is cranked up even further. As you might expect, Stone et al’s vision of futuristic 2007 Los Angeles comes across as seriously dated and embarrassingly early-90s in retrospect, but because it grafts a quasi-cyberpunk storyline onto an old-fashioned film noir plot, such temporal concerns are largely irrelevant. James Belushi acquits himself adequately as Harry Wyckoff, the unwitting lawyer who becomes embroiled in the sinister world of paranoia and mind control, but he is overshadowed by brilliantly sinister Robert Loggia (as mogul Kreutzer), along with Kim Cattrall, who steals the show as the super-sultry femme fatale Paige.
The ensuing years have seen TV shows improve on pretty much every level, with longer, better, slicker series that captivate audiences with their offbeat premises. Nowadays viewers enjoy having their curiosity tweaked by deliberately confusing series like ‘Lost’, but it is easy to see why viewers were baffled at the time. Nevertheless, you can’t fault Stone and co. for trying, and as hyper-stylised sci-fi mini-series go, Wild Palms is an admirable attempt.
Whilst it can’t live up to those endless ‘Twin Peaks’ comparisons Wild Palms is infinitely preferable to David Lynch’s more recent enterprise, Inland Empire! As such, anyone in search of an offbeat, bargain-priced (£7.99) mini-series to kill time between their favourite shows, should find Wild Palms a suitably diverting prospect.
FILM: 6 EXTRAS: 1
DVD Info:
Certificate: 15
Starring: James Belushi, Kim Cattrall, Ernie Hudson, Angie Dickinson
Directed By: Various, 1993
Distributor: Fremantle Media
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0
Visuals: 4:3 Fullscreen
Running Time: 255mins
Price: £7.99
Special Features:
Episode Selection
