People I Know

Al Pacino is at his most haggard in this cautionary thriller, which never seems to know precisely where it is going or what its point is. Eli Wurman (Big Al) is an old fashioned PR agent, a legendary figure whose time handling the big players is fast disappearing. A lifetime of excess has taken a heavy toil and Eli wants out. His last big client, Cary Launer (O'Neal) wants him to bail out his latest conquest from the jailhouse, a coked up young starlet (Leoni) with a deadly secret. One murder later and life as Eli knows it has been irrevocability altered.

A film full of ideas but one which is reluctant to investigate any of them, People I Know is fatally undermined by this reticence and sheer ambiguity. The dense and heavily populated plot rarely threatens to break free from its self-imposed limitations and move with grace, balance and power. Though Pacino supplies a fine performance - so jaded that you half expect him to fall asleep any time he actually sits down - the filmmakers have an unfathomable willingness towards making Eli such a noble yet tragic figure, despite little evidence to the contrary.