Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in White Sands (1992)

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Although undistinguished, this movie isn't all that bad, even though you probably never heard of it. It had a theatrical release in 1992, and grossed a mediocre 9 million. The cast is Mickey Rourke, Samuel L. Jackson, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Willem Dafoe. It's a mystery about a small-town deputy investigating a suicide (or homicide) in his territory. The dead man was found with a suitcase containing a half million dollars. The deputy, strangely enough, decides to take the money and impersonate the dead man in order to solve the crime. He ends up in a morass involving arms dealers, the CIA, and the FBI.

To me, the greatest weakness of the movie is that the filmmakers don't distinguish between mystery and confusion. It turns out that some of the arms dealers are rogue CIA agents, some of the FBI guys are rogue agents, various FBI internal affairs guys may or may not be straight, and I don't know what side Mastrantonio is on, or exactly why a liberal society dame brokers arms deals. It isn't even clear if the arms dealers are really arms dealers, or if they are parters in a scam with the CIA agent, who pretends to be a arms buyer. Perhaps they just take the money of outside investors and split it, without actually selling anything. Anyway, the money they take this time happens to be the evidence money that Dafoe borrowed, and it just so happens that it was originally stolen from the FBI evidence files. So pretty much everyone is after the bucks, and pretty much everyone is pissed off at Dafoe, especially the ones who know that he isn't who he's pretending to be. As I said, it simply follows the tactic of having every single thing in the movie be something other than what it is supposed to be. This is more of a cheap device than real plotting, but I watched it all the way through, with only a couple FF advances, mainly because of my favorite character actor, Samuel L. Jackson, who lights up the screen with his usual entertaining blend of smart-ass bravado and posturing bullshit.

As mentioned, I used the FF a couple times, so I probably missed this detail, but I still don't know why the guy who killed the original victim left behind the suitcase full of money, then tried so hard to get it back. I suppose there was some reason why he didn't just take it when he iced the guy. Maybe he knew that if he had done that, there would have been no movie.

The Bare Facts Guide said that these scenes are a mixture of body doubles and Mastrantonio.

Interestingly, Mimi Rogers appears (fully clothed) in an uncredited minor part as Dafoe's wife. According to Leonard Maltin, she once had a more substantial part, but lost out in the cutting room. Strange that they didn't list her in the cast at all, because she still had a few lines and a couple minutes of screen time.

Written by: Scoopy...Scoopy.net