The 1989 Neo-Noir Third Degree Burn is Depressingly Lukewarm and Devoid of Ghost Fucking
Welcome, friends, to the latest entry in Control Nathan Rabin 4.0. It’s the career and site-sustaining column that gives YOU, the kindly, Christ-like, unbelievably sexy Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place patron, an opportunity to choose a movie that I must watch, and then write about, in exchange for a one-time, one hundred dollar pledge to the site’s Patreon account. The price goes down to seventy-five dollars for all subsequent choices.
Early in her career, Virginia Madsen was in danger of being typecast as femme fatales that are as desirable as they are deadly. In consecutive years Madsen played a faithless wife who becomes sexually involved with the detective sent to investigate her in a pair of television movies, 1988’s Gotham and then 1989’s Third Degree Burn.
A much more memorable femme fatale turn lurked just around the corner in 1990’s steamy The Hot Spot but first she had to grind it out for a paycheck in 1989’s Third Degree Burn. Despite its title, Third Degree Burn is decidedly lukewarm.
In one of her more forgettable performances and forgettable films, Madsen plays Anne Scholes, who is introduced as the pampered wife of Clay Richards (Richard Masur), a wealthy businessman understandably concerned that his beautiful, much younger wife is cheating on him.
So he hires horny detective Scott Weston (Treat Williams) to follow her and ascertain whether or not she’s having an extramarital affair.
Now if I were the rich husband in this scenario I would make a point of specifying that part of the assignment involves NOT having a steamy sexual affair with the woman he’s following. I’d tell him that I had seen a LOT of movies and read a lot of hardboiled novels and almost invariably the detective tasked with following the mystery woman ends up having sex with her himself.
If I were Williams’ shamus, meanwhile, I would in turn tell my short-time employer that I needed concrete proof that he was who he said he was and was not pretending to be someone else as part of a nefarious criminal scheme involving my possible death or imprisonment.
In a decidedly non-shocking turn of events, everything that you think will happen in Third Degree Burn happens more or less exactly how you think it will, beginning with Scott meeting sexy with Anne at a spa and immediately hitting it off.
The bored trophy wife and detective bond over their shared attractiveness and make the beast with two backs. But when Clay seemingly turns up dead the detective becomes the main suspect due to his illicit sexual liaison with his client’s wife.
But is Clay really dead? And is Anne who she professes to be? The answers won’t surprise you! Third Degree Burn is unfortunately a Neo-Noir like every other.
Watching it I was reminded of the scene in Metallica: Some Kind of Monster where one of the members criticizes some of the work that they’re doing as “stock.”
One of the definitions of stock is “a cliche, hackneyed.” But the use of the word in Metallica: Some Kind of Monster goes beyond that to convey a state of total creative and spiritual exhaustion.
We know exactly what is meant by “stock” in this very specific context: joyless, hack, uninspired, utterly devoid of vitality, vim and vigor.
In other words, Third Degree Burn. It’s the third television movie I have written about for this project. But where Long Gone transcended the TV movie ghetto with cinematic production values and quality and Gotham distinguished itself by being gorgeously filmed and also surprisingly supernatural, Third Degree Burn is thoroughly undistinguished.
Also, Gotham prominently involves ghost-fucking. Third Degree Burn, sadly, does not. Lastly, Gotham featured two fine performances from future Oscar winners or nominees in Tommy Lee Jones and Virginia Madsen.
If I had to use one word to describe Madsen’s character and performance here it would be “stock.” It’s not Madsen’s fault. The limp screenplay does not give her anything to do or anything to work with. She doesn’t have much in the way of screen time either, disappearing for long stretches unexpectedly and disappointingly. Madsen can play sexy and dangerous in her sleep but Third Degree Burn reduces her to her sultry good looks.
I would similarly use the word “stock” to describe Williams’ performance. Like Madsen, he’s a fine actor defeated by a weak script that hits all the expected beats with little energy or inspiration.
Third Degree Burn was directed by Roger Spotiswoode, an editor, director and screenwriter with a fascinatingly mixed resume that includes highs like editing Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and Hard Times, co-writing the screenplay for 48 Hours and directing the acclaimed television movie And the Band Played On and the non-acclaimed James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies.
On the downside Spottiswoode also helmed Stop or My Mom Will Shoot! and Turner and Hooch as well as plenty of less distinguished fare like Third Degree Burn.
I have been pleasantly surprised by a lot of the films I’ve watched so far for my patron-funded exploration of Madsen’s complete filmography. Time and time again something that looked forgettable or mediocre turned out to be genuinely good, in no small part because of Madsen.
Third Degree Burn, in sharp contrast is exactly what it appears to be—a generic Neo-noir—and less. Thankfully that is not true of the next film in our journey, Dennis Hopper’s scorching 1990 thriller The Hot Spot, which is everything that that Third Degree Burn should be but most assuredly is not.
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