Very loosely based on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal, Abel Ferrara’s repetitive narrative had room for a better story. Dull and overlong with only moments of interest.
Ferrara opens in a typical business meeting between French financier and presidential hopeful Devereaux (a sleepy Depardieu) and a fellow businessman as flirty secretaries flit about distractingly. Actually, they’re more than flirtatious - they’re willing, at Devereaux’s command, to drop to their knees and perform a sex act on the businessman right there. The scene is weird and twisted, like hippy free love has made it to Wall Street, but it sets things up nicely.
Then it’s off to a hotel where he tries to encourage the female maitre’d to join his friends and prostitutes for cocaine and champagne. When finished with them, they are ushered through the lobby’s revolving door (a clumsy metaphor) as more pull up in a limo; the party scene where they drunkenly throw an ice-cream cognac concoction at each other is supposed to look like what it is: a night of sexual depravity and a display of obscene wealth not seen since the Fall of the Roman Empire.
And still he can’t stop. His shower the next morning is interrupted by the maid whom he proceeds to force himself on. Shaken, she reports the assault and Devereaux is arrested at the airport. Fully aware of his indiscretions, his France-based wife (firecracker Bisset) is less disgusted at his behaviour, more disappointed that he’s thrown away the presidency.
There isn’t much of a plot and it’s not really a character exploration beyond the moral bankruptcy of this financier. Welcome To New York is more a grim documentary. The scenes go on and on, and when they reach a point where it’s now real uncomfortable to witness, Ferrara keeps going, determined to disgust the last person in the audience still getting their voyeuristic jollies. But the lengthy scenes provide a revenge of sorts when Devereaux is arrested and strip searched (Depardieu bravely letting it all hang out), scenes that revel in his humiliation.
What character exploration there is is of the Fairy Tale demon variety. "I’m a monster," he exclaims at one point, but the delivery is sarcastic. He doesn’t believe it. Devereaux’s (deliberately exaggerated) guttural growls as he orgasms are animalistic. He mentions something about sex addiction but doesn’t follow up on it.
But this isn’t about monsters or addicts, and it’s not about character or a plot either - this is about entitlement. Devereaux attempts to rape because he feels he can. His bemused attitude to the charges and the lack of remorse suggest something towards the divine right of a king.