‘This is insane…’
I’ve written before about the strange filmography of recently deceased German filmmaker Wolfgang Peterson. After creating one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time in Das Boot and a beloved children’s classic in The Neverending Story, Peterson spent the ’90s churning out Hollywood blockbusters (some of which are admittedly excellent – namely Air Force One and In the Life of Fire). Shattered was Peterson’s first Hollywood production and it’s a strange and elusive picture…
Dan Merrick (Tom Berenger) awakes from a coma following a car accident to discover that he is suffering from amnesia. His wife Judith (Greta Scacchi) nurses him back to health but it soon becomes clear that someone is hiding a dark secret. Unsure of who to trust, Dan turns to an eccentric private eye (Bob Hoskins) who also runs a pet store.
It took me a while to get into Shattered. Visually it’s quite drab, despite the pedigree of Peterson, and all the washed-out greys and blues become tiresome after a while. Peterson’s script (based on a novel by Richard Neely) really comes alive in the third act, however, and the presence of Berenger and Hoskins elevates this otherwise so-so thriller into something more satisfying. The pair share an irresistible chemistry that made me long for an eight-part miniseries of the two of them running around solving crimes together. The twists and turns of the conclusion are a lot of fun, and while I very rarely guess the ending of any film due to the old monkey brain, this one really kept me guessing until the end.
Shattered is one of many yuppie nightmare adjacent adult thrillers from the late ’80s and early ’90s and while it’s hardly original, it’s still a great time at the movies, especially for those of us who long for some proper adult cinema at a time when so much of cinema has been infantilised.