Let’s not sugarcoat it: Jade is the erotic thriller that forgot the “erotic” and tripped over the “thriller.” It’s the cinematic equivalent of watching someone try to be sexy while giving a TED Talk about paint samples. This 1995 embarrassment is slick, sweaty, and dumber than a sack of doorknobs, written by Joe Eszterhas—he of Basic Instinct fame—and directed by William Friedkin, who once gave us The Exorcist but clearly didn’t exorcise the demons from this script.
The setup sounds juicy. A brutal murder. A political cover-up. A mysterious woman with a past. Secrets, lies, and… oh wait, here comes David Caruso, starring as Assistant District Attorney David Corelli, a man so wooden he could double as a coat rack in a courtroom. He’s got the charisma of a DMV printer and the fashion sense of someone who thinks leather jackets go with subpoenas.
The plot—or whatever passed for one at the pitch meeting—revolves around a murdered art dealer with some very spicy blackmail material involving elite San Francisco figures and a mystery woman named “Jade.” Could Jade be Caruso’s old flame, Dr. Katrina Gavin, played by Linda Fiorentino with a half-glazed look that says I read the script and still showed up? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe she’s just here for contractually obligated shower scenes and lots of slow-motion walking down marble hallways while saxophones cry in the background.
The movie tries to be mysterious. It tries to be dangerous. It ends up being a swirling vortex of awkward sex scenes, car chases that look like they were directed by a sleep-deprived GPS system, and dialogue so forced you can actually hear it limping off screen.
Let’s pause for a moment and talk about Caruso. Fresh off his NYPD Blue fame, someone thought he could carry a major film. What we get is 100 minutes of smug whispering, blank staring, and more awkward one-liners than a dive bar speed dating night. He delivers every line like he’s seducing a file cabinet. He’s supposed to be tough, conflicted, brilliant. Instead, he looks like he’s constantly trying to remember where he parked.
Fiorentino, fresh off The Last Seduction and still radiating noir goddess energy, is utterly wasted. You can see her smoldering in every scene, trying to inject venom into a script that hands her nothing but tired clichés and vague sensual metaphors. “I could tell you things that would curl your hair,” she says at one point. Ma’am, the only thing curling is the audience’s toes from secondhand embarrassment.
And then there’s the infamous car chase through Chinatown, which lasts approximately four lifetimes. Friedkin reportedly considered it the “best car chase ever filmed.” If by “best” he meant “overedited, disorienting, and choreographed like a bumper car funeral,” then sure, Bill. You do you.
The cinematography is all teal-and-sweat. Half the movie looks like a Calvin Klein ad shot in a morgue. Every scene is either too dark to see or too drenched in mood lighting to care. The soundtrack? Oh, you better believe there’s saxophone. More saxophone than sense. It moans and wails like it’s trapped in a late-night cable softcore scene… which, let’s be honest, most of this movie feels like.
The ending is supposed to shock. Twist. Seduce. It does none of those things. It just sort of collapses under its own overplotted weight, like a drunk noir fan trying to recite Raymond Chandler while wearing silk boxers. There’s a reveal, yes—but it lands with the grace of a tossed ham. By the time the credits roll, you’re left with more questions than answers, chief among them: Who greenlit this? and Can I sue?
Final Verdict:
Jade is the kind of film that thinks whispering dirty words in a courtroom equals tension. It’s hollow, overwrought, and tone-deaf to its own absurdity. Caruso sinks it. The script lights it on fire. And Fiorentino, bless her, does her best while the entire movie folds around her like a wet cigarette.
1 out of 5 stars.
One star for Linda Fiorentino’s cheekbones doing more acting than Caruso’s entire face. The rest? Take it behind the courthouse and bury it. Preferably under several layers of concrete and shame.
